suggestions for obedience class

[Justicemom]

Mine barks when he's stressed!! It's great that the sheltie got over his problem! I love success stories!

Yea re: the scruffing, I didn't know any better then. I was very upset and just knew it wasn't working. I'm thankful for my slightly obsessive traits coz I went and read up tons since and realised what I'd gone and allowed to happen. Sigh. I'm sure alot of his problems now were partly caused by or made worse by what happened during his early months. *kicks self!!*

So sorry. We all make mistakes. When I started obedience training it was mostly jerk and praise. Positive techniques and food training were just beginning to be acceptable. I made the mistake of giving my JRT mix to an instructor to use as a demo. He almost took her head off with a choke chain. I never gave my dog to another person again unless I knew them really well. My JRT mix was 2 yrs and tough as nails. But she learned to hate training from that experience.

 

[Fergusmom]

My first obedience instructor was a guy who trained Dobermans as guard dogs for the police and military. My shelties and I were scared to death when he domonstrated at one class what these dogs could do. There was no positive reinforcement from him. Force and yank was his style. It soured me on obedience training for years. I didn't go back until this spring when I took Fergus to one sponsored by our local kennel club. What a difference! Fergus and I had a great time and he loved going. It was amazing how easy he was to train. I think I might take Baxter when their next class starts in January. He's a smart boy and I think he'll do well. I've done it both ways and positive training gets my vote.

 

[lotsahair]

I see this all the time in our training classes. Your job is to keep your dog busy! If she is focused on you, doing sit, touch, etc, and getting lots of yummy treats, she is less likely to focus and bark at the other dogs. Even if you feel you are being rude because you are not "listening" to the instructor, keep your dog occupied! Listen with your ears, but give your attention to the dog. Touch is a great command to reinforce while you are having "down time" or when the instructor is talking.

Break eye contact! If there is a dog who is staring at her, she may be feeling stressed and will bark. Position her so she cannot stare at the other dogs, or see other dogs staring at her.

Practice "leave it" - when she starts focusing and barking at another dog, sing out "leave it" in a really happy voice, and when she turns her attention back to you, reward her.

Bring a favorite toy from home! She may be willing to play a quiet game like tug, or she may not, depending on her stress level.

She is still very young - be patient and do your best! It is hard work for the human but should be fun fun fun for the dog! Good luck!

 

[Katherine]

Just remember. My friend had a male sheltie that barked non stop as a pup. Not at anything specific. It was a stress thing. He would get stressed and he'd bark. We were able to get it down to a soft yip pause yip pause but couldn't get it to go away all together. So he would heel yipping all the way. What we did was get a wooden spoon and put peanut butter and let him lick it. The peanut butter stuck to the roof of his mouth and the yipping stopped. Then we told what a good quiet boy he was. Dog now has his UD and almost never loses points for barking.

What a fantastic idea ! As soon as Snap is released to go back to class, I'm trying this. While his barking has improved, I have not been able to eliminate it in an hour long class.

 

[BarbV]

I'm reminded reading through this thread that a technique that we were taught and I should use more often myself is the "Look" command.

"Look" requires the dog to drop focus on anything but you! If dog is totally distracted by all the activity going on around him, you need to zone him in on you.

Another one that they taught us was "Settle" - get the pup all excited and in a playing frenzy with a toy, then remove the toy, tell dog to "settle" and when they do mark and treat. It's similar in that it requires the dog to ignore anything but you.