How can I use his focus?

[jami74]

Our boy is nine months now

Actually he might be ten

Anyway, he is very high energy, a little bit reactive (traffic and people who come too close) and still rubbish on the lead (probably due to being reactive to everything, can do it perfectly at home). However he loves the ball and has such super focus on it that as soon as I get it out he ignores everything else. We have a park with a high fence next to a road and if I get the ball out we can do tricks and play fetch right near the fence/traffic and not notice it is there. Barky dogs can come right up to him and if he's looking at the ball it is like he can't see them. Other people and bikes cease to exist if he's looking at the ball.

How can I use his ability to focus to get his attention off of things like traffic, people, bikes etc? I think he is too excited about the ball to be able to heel nicely while he can see it, but there are no treats that are more important to him than what else is going on in the environment. We are practicing lots with treats near distractions and he is getting better but we are still a long way from being able to go on an enjoyable street walk.

[ShellyF]

Our boy is the same age and through trial and error and watching him a lot, our street walk around the subdivision (as opposed to trail walking) is work for him and boy does he focus. We have trained him to lie down for every car so the moment he hears one he’s down now with no command necessary. Once the car has gone by he gets a ‘walk on’ from me. On the busy stretches he’s virtually walking forward in a stalk as if approaching sheep and when we are on a quiet stretch he does more sniffing. Near the end of the walk he used to go silly but we realized he needed direction so I keep him on a short leash clipped to the front of his harness so he knows it’s still work. 

Once home we let him run free out in our back yard for some decent playtime. 

So to answer your question we harness his herding focus onto the cars knowing that we’ve trained him to ‘down’ and of course keep him on leash. Ditto for people walking by. 

[D'Elle]

My experience with a ball or frisbee obsessed border collie was that it was very tricky trying to use it as a training tool. He would not focus on anything else, including my training cues, if he could see the ball or a frisbee. I tried training him with that as a reward, but eventually gave that up and used other positive reinforcement methods to train (food worked for him), and then used the fetch game as a final big reward at the end of every training session. You might try that. It sounds as if your dog is the way mine was, so I suggest that you don't let him see the ball when you go out for a walk. Do your training session for a nice leash walk, reward him with treats and/or praise as you train, and then take him to your yard or other secure place where he can fetch for a short time as his reward for a good training session.

[jami74]

On ‎1‎/‎15‎/‎2019 at 1:14 AM, ShellyF said:

We have trained him to lie down for every car so the moment he hears one he’s down now with no command necessary. Once the car has gone by he gets a ‘walk on’ from me. On the busy stretches he’s virtually walking forward in a stalk as if approaching sheep and when we are on a quiet stretch he does more sniffing.  

Yes this has been our strategy too, although we still get caught by surprise sometimes or he's not always able to hold the down. I'm finding he definitely wants the 'work' and if I can't give him instruction quick enough he'll make his own work. He seems to be calming down and even when he does lunge and bark it's less enthusiastic, I'm suspecting that sometimes it is more of a self rewarding learnt behaviour ("Ooh a car and I'm not down yet, I'll get away with a quick back flip") because other times he can contain himself. I also find that consistent traffic is easier than occasional traffic, or a steady stream of people walking past is easier than a single person.

On ‎1‎/‎16‎/‎2019 at 11:47 PM, D'Elle said:

My experience with a ball or frisbee obsessed border collie was that it was very tricky trying to use it as a training tool. He would not focus on anything else, including my training cues, if he could see the ball or a frisbee. I tried training him with that as a reward, but eventually gave that up and used other positive reinforcement methods to train (food worked for him), and then used the fetch game as a final big reward at the end of every training session. You might try that. It sounds as if your dog is the way mine was, so I suggest that you don't let him see the ball when you go out for a walk. Do your training session for a nice leash walk, reward him with treats and/or praise as you train, and then take him to your yard or other secure place where he can fetch for a short time as his reward for a good training session.

Yes that is exactly how it is with the ball, I can't imagine that he'll be able to concentrate on anything else if he can see the ball in my hand. He will do tricks for a throw of the ball but couldn't manage a sequence. I have done lots of putting it in my pocket so he's used to it going away, we do a few minutes of something, then a couple of throws, then a few minutes of something else. We'll keep going with the treats.

[GentleLake]

That's not focus; it's obsession. The same applies to cars; it's not herding focus, but obsession and it's not a desirable trait. And I'm I'm not a fan of encouraging obsessions. Yes, I throw the ball occasionally for my ball-obsessed border collie, but I call the shots about when and how long we play and when we're done he knows it. I put the ball away at other times.

On 1/14/2019 at 8:14 PM, ShellyF said:

...we harness his herding focus onto the cars knowing that we’ve trained him to ‘down’ and of course keep him on leash....

I'm not sure where this misconception originated, but it's been addressed here on the Boards repeatedly. The obsession with movement is not "herding focus." It's rooted in prey drive, which can easily become obsession with movement, especially in obsessive-compulsive prone breeds like border collies. 

Training a pup to lie down when cars go by is an excellent strategy, but it's not "harnessing" anything. In fact, it's doing exactly the opposite, teaching a dog to exert self control in the presence of the trigger of her obsession and not to act compulsively on the impulse. It's classic behavior modification and is the best way to curb CCD behaviors and is most effective when started as soon as they begin to develop.

 

 

[GentleLake]

Here's a nice, if basic and not very detailed, article about understanding what we need to know to help our dogs learn self control: https://suzanneclothier.com/article/guidelines-teaching-self-control/

[jami74]

Thanks for the article.

Yes I have full control over the ball, it doesn't come out on every outing and when it does it's a short play and then goes away again.

So the short answer is no, I cannot get our boy to be obsessed with walking nicely on the lead to the point of ignoring everything else. Nevermind.

The last couple of days have felt like huge progress days. We seem to have a week or two where there's no improvement and I start worrying about things, and then suddenly big leaps of improvement.