I need training tips for Corey. We've made wonderful progress on leash training but that's it. If I have a treat in my hand when I tell him to sit or lay he will but the moment I don't he stops listening. He refuses to be potty trained, we were good for a couple months then it all went back to hell. Twice in the past few days we'll go upstairs and being getting ready for bed and he'll go potty five seconds after I've closed the door. (I go to bed pretty much the same time every night.) It's worse when it's raining. We have a doggy door because he wouldn't let us know when he needed to go out and now his favorite room to potty in is the one with the doggy door. (Which just furthers my frustration.)I clean up all the spots I find though judging from the smell in the one room I'm missing some. I spray they sent stuff onto it. (we've tried several brands.) He know he's doing wrong cause when I find his mistakes he'll back away tail down and go hide or go in the other room and lay down. If I can't get him to stop soon he's going to become an outside only dog.
Training
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Try mixing it up so when you do a training session, you might give him a treat every second time, or third time - mix it up so he can't predict when he's going to get a treat or if he's just going to get praise and a pat.
Leave him outside for longer at night. Do you give him a cue word like 'go potty' or 'go wees' or anything when you take him out to toilet? I guarantee you he's not sitting there thinking 'hehe, I'm going to REFUSE to be potty trained!' It's just not clear to him yet that he should only toilet outside.
The other thing I can guarantee you is that he doesn't know what he is doing is wrong. The reason he shows that sort of body language would be because of your reaction to catching him. I would hazard a guess and say at some point you have scolded him or yelled at him for toileting inside? Or that your body language is very negative when you catch him doing it inside, so he reacts to it by showing signs of submission.
If you catch him toileting in the house, pick him up and put him outside. Don't say anything, don't punish him, just put him outside. Consistency is the key with toilet training. How old is he?
He's just over a year. I really don't take him out to go potty. He has the doggy door and for months he had no problem taking himself out to go. It's funny that you say he's being submissive to me as I've been told he think he's the alpha dog. (We went to a trainer for a while but then got told he was too aggressive and needed private lessons. I've never seen him be aggressive with humans cats ferrets or dogs. So we stopped going as we didn't have the money.) You would be right about the yelling though I do it more to let out my own frustrations not to yell AT him. I rarely catch him going in the house, he usually does it when I'm out or I'm upstairs and he's down. I've only caught him once lately and that's when he was peeing in the room, I sent him outside while I was cleaning up. I was told that I needed to limit his space and that's how I got him to stop for those couple of months. He only went inside at night so I locked him in the room with me and it stopped. But now as you can figure it isn't working.
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You know, interesting enough, my family friends bought a program called The Perfect Dog. The trainer is adamant against training with treats. He says that LOADS of positive praise is really all the dog needs, and it's better because the dog will not learn to expect treats in order to behave...or something like that...
What is your take on that, Smeagle?
What is your take on that, Smeagle?
Makes sense to me. If it works. My old dog a mutt did very well with a similar system. Part of why I'm frustrated with Corey my old dog would just learn. Plus I've never been a dog person, Corey is only my second that I've actually had to care for and train though there were very few times growing up that we didn't have one.
OH whole reason I was stopping by, I wanted to ask how often do you take a dog out to go potty?
Also I'm going back to school soon, college in the mornings about 4-5 hours. I'm trying to decide if I want to put him in the back yard or his crate. Which would you guys suggest? I prefer the back yard but just because I have problems locking him in a crate (I feel horrible about it). He would have toys and bones. Do I need to find away to get him water while he's in there? Do they make dog sized water bottles cause he tips his bowl.
Also I'm going back to school soon, college in the mornings about 4-5 hours. I'm trying to decide if I want to put him in the back yard or his crate. Which would you guys suggest? I prefer the back yard but just because I have problems locking him in a crate (I feel horrible about it). He would have toys and bones. Do I need to find away to get him water while he's in there? Do they make dog sized water bottles cause he tips his bowl.
I can't imagine 4-5hrs would be an issue for him to be in a crate since he's a little older. When we first got our two we crated them while we were gone. Most of the time they sleep anyways. LOL We also bought a water bowl specifically for a crate. It hooks/bolts on to the wires so that they can't tip it over. However, I've paid a lot of attention to how much they drink while we're gone for the day, and honestly I don't think they drink much. I'll check their water bowl before I leave in the morning and again when I get home, and the level will not have changed much, if at all. But usually when I walk in one of the first things they do is get a drink of water.
My take is that it's just plain stupid not to use what motivates your dog the most
I have basic doggy manners I expect from my dogs when we're in the house etc, and I don't give them treats when they demonstrate these good doggy manners i.e. sitting nicely at the door if they want to go outside/come in, not jumping up on visitors, getting off the furniture when I tell them to etc.
However, I'd love to see him come out and train my beagle or my Siberian for that matter and ask them to purely work for praise
I also expect a different level of response when we're training, as opposed to just being in the house. When we're at home, I expect the dogs to comply with my commands and the house rules, but it's all pretty casual. When I take Daisy out to train I want 110% focus, I expect her to comply instantly with my commands. Because I use her food drive to my advantage when we're training, I also expect her to give me lots of drive and eagerness to work. I have trained Daisy to learn that when I give the words 'ready to work' that I'm about to reward her in food drive, so every time we train I give her that cue so she knows what is coming and what level of response I expect from her.
Just because I use food in training, or often when I'm teaching a new behaviour, does not mean that I have to use it all the time. I use it every time we train, because I want Daisy to have that awesome level of response and drive that I can only get when I train her in food drive. However, I rarely treat the dogs when we're at home and they are demonstrating behaviour that I expect because I raise my dogs to have good manners. Sure, I might use treats to train that behaviour initially, but I rarely use them once the behaviour becomes a habit.
If you had a dog who had tonnes of food or prey (toy) drive, why <span style="font-style: italic">wouldn't</span> you want to use it to your advantage? Not all dogs are interested in working for praise.
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Ummm....does it work? For labs, it DOES work, apparently. I don't know about beagles, though. We don't give our puppies tons of treats.
As for crate training - dogs are naturally inclined to like dens. If you put the dogs in a crate, they may protest it at first, but they'll get over it after a while. They will, if done right, come to love their crates. Our beagles are now learning the get in your crate command. Unless they're not tired yet, they do pretty well with it. We don't even have to give them treats. I just wait until they get super tired and practically want to go to their crates. After a long day of playing outside and going for a walk, they are POOPED and go into their crate before I get the chance to take off their harnesses.
Smeagle - thanks for responding to my question. I told my friend about dogs being motivated by food, and she said that the idea is that they learn that praise is good enough. Again, she's using the training method on her lab, not her beagle mix.
As for crate training - dogs are naturally inclined to like dens. If you put the dogs in a crate, they may protest it at first, but they'll get over it after a while. They will, if done right, come to love their crates. Our beagles are now learning the get in your crate command. Unless they're not tired yet, they do pretty well with it. We don't even have to give them treats. I just wait until they get super tired and practically want to go to their crates. After a long day of playing outside and going for a walk, they are POOPED and go into their crate before I get the chance to take off their harnesses.
Smeagle - thanks for responding to my question. I told my friend about dogs being motivated by food, and she said that the idea is that they learn that praise is good enough. Again, she's using the training method on her lab, not her beagle mix.
I really don't want him to love his crate. My mother told me of someone she knew that their beagle spent all her time in her crate, she would be let out, she would sniff around, and then go back in her crate (and be locked in). That is what they trained her to do. That's not why I have a dog, I have him because I like it when he sits on my feet when I'm on the computer, when he curls up next to me when we're watching a movie, when he tries to cheer me up when I'm sad, and to watch him play with the cats and ferrets.
Personally our dogs are all kept outside when we aren't home. I personally will not crate a dog all day.
Gnome:
ETA: Gnome, Daisy LOVES her crate. It's her safe area, her den, where she eats her meals and gets to have her own space away from the other animals and people in the house. But, she doesn't spend all day in there.
Gnome:
This is recommended so that dogs don't get overly excited when you come home and see you leaving and going as a big deal. I ignore all my dogs when I get home, and when I let them in they have to sit nicely and calmly before having a pat.
ETA: Gnome, Daisy LOVES her crate. It's her safe area, her den, where she eats her meals and gets to have her own space away from the other animals and people in the house. But, she doesn't spend all day in there.
Perhaps for basic house manners, but why use praise when food or toys will work faster, and get you better results? (i.e. the dog is more willing to comply with your commands because they are so food driven, and not so praise driven). You can't force a dog to overcome food drive, and whilst you can increase drives what's the point not using what motivates your dog the most.
There is no reason why dogs who are trained with food can't work for praise, like I said in my last post, you are just going to get a better, faster, more focused response from the dog if you use what drives them most. For basic house manners I don't find it necessary to use food unless I'm teaching them what I want, and then once it becomes a habit I phase out the treats. I've not had a problem yet
But when it comes to training it's like I said earlier. I expect a high level of focus and drive when I am training Daisy, which is why I use food drive. I would never get the same response from her purely using praise.
I've been trying to teach Corey to sit nicely before letting him into the house when he's been locked out and I haven't even gone any where. The way he carrys on you'd think that the end of the world happened while he was out there and he's beyond happy so see another living being.
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Oh there's so much to teach and I feel so unable to handle it. Sigh... How's someone with no self discipline suppose to teach someone else to have it? Maybe the hubby will have more luck then I've had these past six months.
Oh my goodness! I just read this post and thought That's me!Originally Posted By: gnomeI've been trying to teach Corey to sit nicely before letting him into the house when he's been locked out and I haven't even gone any where. The way he carrys on you'd think that the end of the world happened while he was out there and he's beyond happy so see another living being.Oh there's so much to teach and I feel so unable to handle it. Sigh... How's someone with no self discipline suppose to teach someone else to have it? Maybe the hubby will have more luck then I've had these past six months.![]()
I think what's really helped is consistancy. I freely admit that I'm not a dog person. I love JoJo and want nothing but the best for her, but I have absolutely NO clue what I'm doing! I get frustrated easily, but the past few days have really calmed down, and it's made a big difference. I know she senses what I feel and interprets my body language better than I do.
Honestly, I don't think crating him would be a bad thing for a few hours. We crate JoJo when we're out, and she's been left for 4-5 hours at a time sometimes. She loves her crate, and it's left open at all times in case she feels like going in. She has a bed right next to it, so she always has a choice.
When my brother potty-trained his corgi pup, he used the crate. Restricting their space is a great idea, and can be a great tool.
Plus, going outside and using those potty cue-words can work wonders. We can go out with JoJo (who's 18months and we've had for 7months) and she'll wander around outback, but if we say go potty she'll go, and go about her business. She knows what to do when she's told it's potty time.
Take lots of deep breaths. It WILL get better!
You want to be careful not to indulge the carrying-on behaviour because he will learn that it's a way to win and he will pull it out every time he wants something. Once a behaviour has become a habit they can be tricky to break.Originally Posted By: gnomeI've been trying to teach Corey to sit nicely before letting him into the house when he's been locked out and I haven't even gone any where. The way he carrys on you'd think that the end of the world happened while he was out there and he's beyond happy so see another living being.Oh there's so much to teach and I feel so unable to handle it. Sigh... How's someone with no self discipline suppose to teach someone else to have it? Maybe the hubby will have more luck then I've had these past six months.![]()
You might like to have a read of this article, it will give you a good perspective and idea of where to start:
http://k9deb.com/nilif.htm
Think about it this way: dogs think, feel and process things completely differently to people. They don't have the same understanding and thought processes that we do, so it's really important for us to make sure that when we communicate with them that we are doing so in a way that they understand. Dogs LIKE to have a consistent leader with boundaries and limitations, so they know the rules and what to expect of us. It does the dog a disservice if we expect him to understand things like we do, or assume that they think and feel like we do.
I will try this. Treats he already sits for but it's become habit more then command we may have to step it up. Everything else is going to be first time round. Mostly. He's learned that he has to wait for me to tell him to go in or out of the front door, but doesn't sit when I put on his leash. Things have been very hodge podge. Some things he seems to pick up instantly others not so much. Plus like I said I don't have much self discipline.
Thanks for the help.
Will he ever go out to the potty on his own? Every one says take him out, will I always have to do that?
Thanks for the help.
Will he ever go out to the potty on his own? Every one says take him out, will I always have to do that?
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