PreciousSheltie
Forums Enthusiast
<3 Nancy, I'm so glad you got to read my post. I definitely do the no no on other people offering to walk my dog other than myself when I'm training Precious. That's why in regular training classes too, it's fine to come with your family, but you really need to determine who's going to do the bulk of the training. And in my family it's me. So many different people give off different cues and do things different and react/teach overall differently. I remember when I had classes my trainer told our class a story about how she would have her trainer friends over for dinner. And every time she did, she would lock her dogs in a separate area of her house, where the TRAINERS couldn't get to her dogs. Why? Because every person teaches their dog slightly differently. She didn't want the trainers to try to get the dogs to 'come here/come/over here/common" and confuse what they already know perfectly. And THAT is totally fine. Ex it doesn't matter if you say stay or wait or any other command word, and it doesnt matter if you use the hand signal with your palm facing towards the dog, or down towards the ground or index finger point out like a "shush" signal... WHATEVER you choose to do, the main thing is consistency. You can do it however you like, it just needs to be consistent. So one day you cant say wait. The next stay. The next one hand signal and the other another. With dogs, it's all about consistency. And especially if you have three people walking the dog so many times a day, every day, it's sort of understandable in that sense why they might not be sure of which rules to follow (that they aren't suppose to pull). The rules get blurred because, like me, so many different people at so many different times increases the chance of unconsciously sending the wrong message to the dogs - increases the chance of inconsistency. Reviewing the commands, the hand signals, the steps to take when your dog pulls and how to reward might be a good idea. It helped me to sit down and reorganize how and which way I was doing everything to make sure I myself was being consistence with my commands, my rewards, my expectations. My best friend comes over a lot to walk Precious when I'm at work or at school. Before I let her anywhere near Precious months ago and several times throughout now even, I gave her a run down of EVERYTHING, as I did not want Precious taking two steps backwards in her training. It's helped a lot. I double check as often as I can to see how she interacts with Precious and show her first hand what I myself do when I want Precious to do certain commands. How to get her to calm down. How to get her to stay. Etc. It's worked for us, it just takes a lot of work among the humans to get things packed down so everyone knew, both her and I, were on the same page and knew all the same things. With my parents, it's a lost cause. So I don't let them train Precious AT ALL. EVER. LOL But mmmm, nonetheless, again, I'm really glad my post has helped you at a timely time for you and your family! It never hurts to review training. Dogs training and human training. As my trainer told me, it doesn't matter how long it takes Precious to learn to heel and walk loosely on a leash without being reactive. Some people it takes a few months. Some people it takes a few years. The most important thing is that you reach the end successfully. I wanted to share that great word of wisdom so you could put it in the context for your Mikos or any other person and their dog that might be reading this! He may be a year old but there's no shame in that! I'm sure he'll pick up on the clicker training quickly! <3 I'm so glad so many people have read my long post and have found useful tips here and there, that was my main intention - to share the VERY helpful tips that have been working first hand for Precious and I
Good luck Nancy! Let me know how the waist leash training goes! I did more training with Precious again today. It's definitely going well 
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Especially the blacks.
