What am I doing wrong? o.o

You aren't doing enough or doing it correctly, if you were, it would be over and done with.

'Will she ever learn' is your title of your thread. That to me, says, despite getting tons of advice and suggestions here, you're still thinking this is something that will be solved with out you, passively. The DOG will just CHANGE. So maybe start by just not even saying stuff like that - instead say, 'I'm going to change what I do and it's going to work - starting now'.

Dogs don't just stop doing things. 'They' don't 'learn'(it sounds like the dog goes and reads a book and comes back and says, 'I learned'). They have to be trained not to do things.

The question is, will you figure out how to teach her appropriately?

You aren't being quick enough, consistent enough, forceful enough, SOMETHING, when you punish your dog. I can't tell because I'm not there watching what you do, but you're not doing something correctly.

Do you REALLY think that you're going to find some magic post on a bulletin board thread, and that's going to solve it? You need someone who can watch what you're doing and tell you what you're doing wrong. You need to think about what you're doing, think about the dog is reacting, no one can 100% hand you this, you need to an extent, to teach yourself. Even if you had lessons once a week you have to work the dog yourself the other 6 days a week.

First of all, you don't give enough detail in your posts, for anyone to tell you anything that you need to change.

Secondly, when people describe what they do, it almost ALWAYS sounds perfectly reasonable, sensible, by the book, because that is how the person thinks it is. It's when an experienced person LOOKS at them that they see what is wrong.

Generally?

First: People aren't consistent. Dog is doing something obnoxious. I don't want to get up from the TV, I'm tired, I was at work all day, blah blah blah. You wanna trained dog? You have to be consistent. That means every single time it does something, it gets punished.

Second: People aren't definite enough and quick enough. The punishment, doesn't mean anything.

Third: They do not change the relationship. The fundamental problem is not 'oh you have to use that kind of leash' or 'oh you need a clicker'. THE PROBLEM IS THE RELATIONSHIP.

Watch Cesar Milan work with dogs sometime. Yeah he does and says some dumb things, but just in general, look at how he uses his body, and how he makes corrections. He FIRST establishes authority over the dog. No I don't agree with every detail of what he does, but overall, he does what every single decent dog trainer has ever done - he establishes first of all, that he is to be obeyed, and he is not intimidated, not scared, not cowed.

And I have sad news for you - your dog is spoiled. It doesn't matter what you do or don't do with treats. How do I know your dog is spoiled? Because of the way you tell me it is behaving. What does spoiled mean? It means it is not behaving itself, it is doing things that are inconvenient, annoying, dangerous or all three, and when you try to stop it, you can't. Why does any dog not behave? Because it has not been trained appropriately. When you don't train a dog appropriately and effectively, you spoil it. Spoiled means, not useful, not good.

Once you have spoiled a dog, it takes 10 times more effort to get it straightened out. It takes more corrections, the dog keeps trying the behavior more times. It takes being super consistent, super firm, super dramatic, and never, ever, ever, ever, allowing it to carry through an action you don't want. All the time and energy that SHOULD have been put into the dog, now, it takes 10 times that.

Dogs that pop up after you punish them and wag their tail, especially if they go right back to what they were doing that you punished them for, you haven't gotten through what you are trying to teach them. Again, not quick enough, consistent enough, forceful enough, or all of the above.

So you almost wrecked your bike. Then walk the dog for an hour, or put it on a treadmill, or tailgate it off the back of a truck, ATV, horse and cart, whatev.

Are you working on obedience with the dog daily for 30 minutes? Hm? By this time, if you were, the dog would know how to make a three course breakfast. Are you doing that? I'm going to bet no.

If you work your dog on basic obedience daily, he will be more controllable around the house.

Say I have a dog that does not lie down when I tell it to. And say this is not a momentarily distracted little soft, cooperative pup, but a spoiled older dog who doesn't think he wants to listen and obey. DOWN is the LAST command a tough, spoiled dog wants to obey. So that's where I start. I say 'DOWN'. The dog has to START lying down immediately. If he does not slam himself into that floor, I am going to slam him into that floor myself. If he growls, he's going to get his butt kicked, and a muzzle put on and then we'll drill the down for a little while longer. No harm in doing 20-30 downs in a day. And by the end of that practice, I bet that dog, when he hears 'DOWN', he's going to lay down.

This is NOT how you train a novice dog or a dog that you already have his cooperation and an understanding that you are the leader. THAT is a game. It's called if I do this, I get rewarded.

THIS DOG is not responding to that.

Obedience is not about 'sit Precious, and I will give you a cookie', or 'sit Precious, and I will click the clicker'. It's not even about 'Sit Precious, and one day we shall win a little piece of ribbon at a dog show'.

Obedience is a life or death thing. One day, this dog is going to run out in the street, and before he gets there, you are going to scream, 'DOOOOOOOOOOWN!!!' and you are going to save this dog's life, instead of seeing him splattered into smithereens. It really is that simple.

Obedience, especially once the dog is ruined like this, is about, 'guess what, this is not optional. You don't think about this, you don't contemplate. You don't get a Courtesy Second. You do it. When I say it, you do it. I am the boss and if I tell you to down, you lay down, or all sorts of he** is going to break loose, and most of it is going to land on you'.

Then what happens is, when he goes running at someone, you say DOWN. And he needs to lay down, right then, right there.

In other words, if you keep YOURSELF to a discplined standard, your dog will, too.

What I do not do, is give a command when I am not in a position to make it happen. Dog has on a chain collar. And if he's a problem, he probably has a short leash left on that collar all the time. I say DOWN. The dog has NO PART of a second to start laying down, he better leave skid marks when he lays down.

Dogs need exercise, and this one needs a lot. But this is not totally about that - this is about how you train. You're not effective. You need to go to a dog training class, with that dog, and learn how to train.

You could go to a class, you could get a book (forget the nicey nicey methods, not going to work), you could even just stand there and watch a good trainer work.

Yeah, I know, you already know everything and don't need a class, can't afford it, can't get a ride to it...or any of the other many excuses people here constantly give.

Work it out. If you would actually get some help, do something, the problem would end.
 
Last edited:
Wow welsummer I think your being way too harsh. You cannot deduce all of that from her post. She is asking for help not a butt chewing.
barnie.gif


Becca her breed is naturally a very hyper dog so make sure she gets plenty of exercise. Does she have a run for during the day or when noone is home? Check locally and see if there is a kennel club or otherwise that offers obedience training. I have a lab(12 yrs old now) that was just this way when he was young. He used to do the jumping and nipping. An excellent dog trainer that I took her to used a mild solution of vinegar and water in a spray bottle. Spray the dog's nose/mouth when she does the offending behavior and give her a firm no another noise/command that is loud and gets her attention. Can't make the noise I make on here. On the same note when she behaves make sure to praise her and reward her. Just keep it at and she will come around. You will have to work with her almost daily and for at least an hour or two at a time. Keep your chin up and keep trying. Don't let the naysayers get you down!!
 
Quote:
Can I suggest that if you are going to use punishment (a debatable issue), clearly you are not using it correctly if it is having no effect; and that just a "good girl" may not in fact be a meaningful reward to her. So if she percieves little or no "educational" value in your punishment efforts, and little or no reward value in your reward efforts, then yeah, nothing will change.

I have to say I'm a bit with welsummerchicks about being worried that you phrase your thread title as "will she ever learn" as if it is HER responsibility. YOU are the one who is missing the boat here, you need to be focusing on THAT. "What am I doing wrong?", you know? Because keeping that foremost in your mind is the key.

With any animal, especially an energetic one, you HAVE to be proactive in finding ways that THE ANIMAL recognizes as useful, to teach it important civilized manners. It is not the animal's responsibility to adapt to you, it is your responsibility to do whatever it takes to figure out the key to managing the animal.

Two big things that I am not hearing you talk about focusing on are 1) finding a really rewarding reward for the animal, and 2) finding ways to prevent or preempt the misbehavior. Those are pretty important things and I think you might want to devote more energy to them. For instance in terms of prevention/preemption, the dog should not be having an OPPORTUNITY to "jump up in peoples faces" because you do not let people near the dog unless you have a foot on the leash; keep the dog leashed to you in the house and then she cannot "run around the house like an idiot then jump on the couch full force"; even when leashed, keep the dog away from the couch and she cannot dart onto it; and sorry but I am not grasping why you cannot exercise her more.

Teach her "leave it" for feeding her treats... do the on-the-ground version first if you need to, where you put your foot on the treat rather than having it in your hand if she paws at your hand too much.

Really, what DOES this dog know? Teach her SOMETHING, get her doing SOMETHING consistently and on command, at least it will give you a place to start from.

Or find her another home, before she becomes even *harder* to rehome.

Pat
 
The last thing I am is a naysayer. What I am saying is that this person came here quite some time ago, got some great suggestions, and didn't put even one of them into play in an effective way.

I am saying, take some personal responsibility, work the dog in obedience every day, exercise the dog for an hour every day, figure out what you're doing wrong and fix it. Every time anyone makes any suggestion, she has an excuse why that doesn't work.

Exercise. Discipline - and it's really self discipline, not dog discipline at all. Every single day.

That is not naysaying, that is saying, this is your job, do it. I hate seeing dogs go to kill shelters, and THAT is why I am being 'harsh'.
 
Last edited:
Wow, Welsummer is harsh... but she is right. It's how I train my dogs. You just simply do. not. let. them. That's the end of it. Lola KNOWS how to behave. And she's a hyper 1 year old staffy puppy! Down is down is down. Beg is beg. Sit is sit. Wait is wait. She even knows the fun tricks, but that's not the point.. you really do just need to be in command, take control and make them. I wouldn't even say I 'punish' my dog in the sense some people think I do - if she is bad, she goes outside. She HATES outside. And she goes outside immediately. No questions, no second chances. Just a loud NO and out and ignore. At first she did things often to warrant this... now she wants to be inside SO BAD that she listens to every command I give her inside. I didn't force her or hit her or anything remotely violent - I just took away everything she wanted because she was abusing the right to have it. And I took it away that second.

it sucks and sometimes you feel bad but really, it is about the dog's life and your own. An ill-managed dog can hurt someone (already has...) or worse. Especially larger dogs. And when you get all that Sit, stay, heel stuff down - you can do the fun tricks SO much easier! I even have my girl trained to 'worship me' by bowing to me and one gun shot is limping and two gun shots is dead.
wink.png
 
Shes exersized about 2-3 hours daily. Im not 'throwing out suggestions'. The great suggestions I

got a while back ARE being used. Bike joring? yes. Hour of walking daily? yes. 30 minutes of

training daily? yes. I KNOW I'm doing somthing wrong. I dont need you to tell me that.

I know it's not her fault. Im not

saying it is. I should change the title I know, sorry, but from the beggining, I knew its

what *I* do. I posted "can somone please give me a website or somthing", because

I've been googling and reading up on all this, but I'm still not doing it right. I'm not

trying to get people to repeat over and over what they told a while back.
wink.png


Shes not going to a new home where she'll be put back into the shelter. I'll fix it.

btw I do watch ceasar milan when i see its on.
wink.png


thanks for the replies.

title changed.
 
Last edited:
If you've tried everything suggested, perhaps it's time to bring in a professional to give you pointers on how to accurately utilize all the tools. No one from here is able to do that.

And with Border Collies, Heelers, and intense working dogs like them, they need TWICE the work of an average dog. Whatever you're doing for exercise, double it. I had a Heeler once, took me two years to get her totally trained. We were in the woods almost all day until she was about 2 years old. Then she toned it down a bit. They're bred to herd all day. Some bloodline have reduced the drives a bit. Others, still have all that drive intact. ALL day. Not at all the sort of breeds you can kennel and leave for work. HUGE time commitment to have one that isn't bonkers.

Not to mention the intelligence. That's a whole other issue. I have intelligent but lazy dogs, much easier to work with. She has a lot of energy, and a brain such as the kind where she will learn from you, good and bad, quickly. Which can be to your advantage for sporting and activities and nifty tricks. But first, there is a lot of "un training" that needs to happen. Sounds like you need someone with you to let you know where your techniques need improvement.
 
Quote:
Seems like once again we'll end up agreeing to disagree, but if I continually make my dog lay down for an hour or more, he'll do it, yes, but he'll also become bored, lose interest, and will be resistant to want to work with me again in the future. Cattle dogs are very intelligent and I used to joke that mine was more like a little brother than a dog because he is so intelligent. We did a lot of work with him and he was/is a very good listener, but it took him about six years to start calming down. He still is not suited to indoor living all year round, but now you can sit on the porch and he'll just lay next to you. Before that, all he wanted to do was play, play, play. Much like a horse, if you just force a dog to do something over and over again, they just won't enjoy what you ask of them. IMO, if you want to give the dog an enjoyable job, you don't force them into it.

Yes, this dog needs obedience training, but I think you are coming to some pretty big conclusions about the poster without really having the whole picture. No, you don't have to smile sweetly and give bogus advice, but I wouldn't expect someone to be receptive to advice given in such a harsh manner, especially to a younger poster. Yes, the truth is harsh, but it doesn't have to be presented that way.

To the OP:

I would probably see if you can either find classes geared towards high energy dogs or have someone come to the house to teach you. Lessons or a trainer are not all that expensive, surprisingly. A few lessons would really help you in your situation I think. Cattle dogs and other high energy breeds of dog can be tough to train if you are not experienced with them. They can also be pretty dominant in nature, which really doesn't help your situation at all. Mine always has been, and that has presented some unique problems many other people with dogs don't typically have. Combined with high energy, it can really make training difficult on your own.
 
Quote:
OK so here is a question...

when you are trying to train her to sit, or leave-it, or whatever else, what exactly are you doing, what is her response, and what is your response to that? And how is it going for you, overall, training those basic commands?

Maybe if you can describe, people could help troubleshoot.

Also, what about keeping her leashed to you when she is in the house so that she physically *cannot* do a lot of the things you are describing? That is pretty simple.

Pat
 

New posts New threads Active threads

Back
Top Bottom