Tomi Jo

I'm sure your pup will grow out of this. Any time you add running and playing into training your bound to end up with an excited dog. Even my dog who is 1 yr. gets excited and acts goofy when we do a fast heeling excercise. My suggestion would be that if your pup gets totally out of control and won't listen at all to take him away from the equipment, settle him down and then try again later. You can also try doing a re-call in between the obstales and making him sit before you send him to another but at his age it might be a little too much for him. Good Luck Tomi Albion, IN

Hi Bob, I'm no expert but I what I did was simply nudge the dog with my leg if he got too close and told him "off". I also turn tight cirles to the left to get the dog use to moving in that direction. At first I was constantly running into him and nudging him with my leg but he is getting a lot better. There were a lot of times I would accidently step on his foot he was so close to me. The poor guy hasn't been stepped on in a while now though. Hope this helps some! Tomi Albion, IN

Hi Myrna, I would suggest going to an obedience class, it's a lot easier to work with someone who can see what your dog is doing than explaining it all over the net. One thing I can tell you is that if you see your dog sitting praise him and tell him "good sit!" You can also coax him into a sit with a treat and gentle pressure on his rear-end. Once the butt is down give lots of praise. Always try to be specific about your praise.."good sit" "good down" etc. Some of the commands can be tricky and you may have to use different ones if your dog already knows "down" as meaning "get off the couch" "get off me" or if you use a "down" in your cow work. Praise, consistancy and repition are the key things to training in my opinion. Along with patience and having fun with it! Hope this helps some. Tomi Albion, IN

I agree that some of it is the lead too, and some of it is me being nervous or tense. I try to keep his lead loose and stay calm but it's not always easy. Sometimes he is fine and other times he is a complete nut! If it's just one or two dogs he does good , it's when you get 50 or more dogs in one building that he starts in on the pulling and lungeing. He's not a barker, he just stares the dog down and then jumps at them! No warning, no snarling and his tail is usually wagging or dropped down along with his head like he's trying to give them the 'eye'. He has great attention off-lead at home and at the club when it is empty but I can't trust him enough during class to work with him off-lead there. He does good with my sisters dogs, they ride in the same vehicle on the way to class and we work together often during the week and he is fine. Once in a while though, while we waiting for our class to start he will see her out of the corner of his eye and lunge at her too. He does put his mouth on her but he don't bite, it's more like he's running into her with his mouth open. Dawn, some good places on the net to find prong collars is J and J Dog Supplies, SitStay.com, and JB wholesales. Thunders prong did wonders for him! Tomi Albion, IN

Hi Dawn, This is a tough one, I'm still going through it with my guy. He's been obedience classes for 4 months now and we are still working on it. (He is 12 months) He loves Agility (we do it at home) but I cannot put him in a class until I get through this behavior with him. One of the things I did was use a squirt bottle with water and a little vineger. That got his attention and then I would tell him to sit,then treat and praise him for behaveing properly. This helped a little but it's hard to hold a dog and squirt him at the same time. I had other trainers and friends to help me out. I also had to pin him to the ground a time or two. I don't really like that approach but it was the only way to get him under control. There are a number of other things that I have tried and still doing but if I went through them all here you would be reading a book. Feel free to e-mail if you want,I know how frustrating it can be! I'll try to help out as much as I can. One other thing that you mentioned is him pulling his feet off the ground with a choke on. This can be very dangerous for you dog. It could cause trechea, neck and back injuries. Hope this helps some, if not e-mail me Tomi Albion, IN

Hello again Jennifer, If she's not sure it's "acceptable" to potty outside try taking some papers from inside that she has pottied on and putting them outside where you want her to go. If she potties there outside praise her. She should get the idea fairly quickly that going outside is a good thing and you will then be able to do away with the papers outside. Best of luck, Tomi Jo, Albion, IN

Hi Jennifer, Your story about your mom falling on her butt and getting run over reminds me of what happened to me a few years back. I was working with my Great Dane (yes, I know this is a BC board )and her recalls were slow so we did what we call a restrained recall where someone physically holds the dog back while you call it and get it all excited and when the dog is all hyped up the person lets the dog go! Most dogs will come barreling straight at you, mine did this! The problem was that I'm a little person, 5 feet tall and my dog outweighed me by 40 pounds! So, here I am, standing in the ring with this huge dog barreling at me! Needless to say I ended up flat on my back with this dog jumping around stepping on me licking me and just as happy as could be! LOL It was the fastest recall I've ever seen her do! Tomi Jo, Albion,IN

ok, this might sound a little strange but it worked for me when nothing else did. I had a dog that barked at everything. Right down to the wind blowing! What I did was teach her to "speak", once she had that down and really knew what it was I taught her "no speak". It has worked so far. She does bark to let me know someone is here but after one or two barks I tell her "ok,no speak". I tried the squirt bottle, telling her no and putting my hand around her muzzle and telling her "no" none of it worked. Maybe this will work for you too. Tomi Jo, Albion, IN

Hi Jennifer, The first thing I would reccommend is buying a crate. I find it easier to housebreak a pup that way. How long does she go between potty breaks? If she is on a fairly regular schedule and you can time it, it might just be a matter of setting the alarm to get up 5-10 minutes before she has her accidents and slowly lengthening the time until she can wait until you get up in the morning. It might mess up your sleep for a little while but at least you won't have the messes to clean up. Good Luck Tomi Jo, Albion, IN

Hi Jennifer, All this is great advice and also the way I train. Praise, praise, praise One thing I did want to mention though was when you have the dog in a sit and take the treat down to the floor, push it back into the dogs chest and down. This will keep the dog from stretching it's neck or creeping forward which will happen if you hold the treat too far away. One more thing, when you tell the dog "down" only say it once and then guide the dog into it, then praise with good down. If you keep repeating the command the dog will get the idea that it don't have to do it the first time you say it but maybe the third or fourth time. I won't repeat the advice on the stays but will say I totally agree with it. As far as the "come" command, don't ever call her and scold her or do anything else with her that she don't like, this is telling her that comeing to you when called is bad. If I have a pup that doesn't respond well to comeing when called I would put them on a long line and call them, if they didn't come I'd just give a little tug to get thier attention and slowly reel them in, not dragging them, but helping if they stop. Keep talking to them and praising them for comeing and always have a treat ready. You can also try running backwards while calling her to get her to come in quicker. But be careful with this, I can't tell you how many times I've landed on my butt! LOL Keep it fun and good luck! Tomi Jo, Albion, IN

I understand what you mean about your BC not doing well with heeling, I had the same problem. My BC, Thunder, started his training in a puppy class when he was 6 months old and did great with everything BUT the heeling. I started with the buckle collar, went to a nylon slip collar, then a chain one..nothing worked. Thunder would pull and bark and just go nuts, totally ignoring the "pops" I would give him. As a last resort I put a Prong collar on him. It worked wonders!! I know a lot of ppl don't like them and think they are "cruel" but I did my research first, believe me, I even put it on myself! They are a lot less traumatic on a dog than any other training collar. In a study of 100 dogs, 50 trained with slip chokes and 50 trained with prong collars only 2 trained with prong collars showed signs of neck,back or trechea damage, compared to 48 that showed damage from a slip choke. I would suggest that you talk to some peaple about it and do some research for yourself. It's VERY important that they are used properly! Thunder was only on the prong collar for 12 weeks, he now heels wonderfully on a buckle collar. Another thing that I am doing now to help his heeling more is Attention Training, teaching him a "watch" command and treating and praise when he looks at me. Thunder is now 11 months old and at the end of Feb. will try for his CGC and then on to a trial for his first "leg" towards a CD in May. Two months ago I would have laughed at the thought of putting him in a trial he was so bad. Good Luck with your training!