|
Welcome to the YorkieTalk.com Forums Community - the community for Yorkshire Terriers. You are currently viewing our boards as a guest which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community you will have access to post topics, communicate privately with other members (PM), respond to polls, upload content and access many other special features. You will be able to chat with over 35,000 YorkieTalk members, read over 2,000,000 posted discussions, and view more than 15,000 Yorkie photos in the YorkieTalk Photo Gallery after you register. We would love to have you as a member! Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so please, join our community today! If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please click here to contact us. |
|
| LinkBack | Thread Tools |
07-12-2005, 12:06 PM | #1 |
Mommy To 3 Poochies Donating Member Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: New York
Posts: 8,287
| Having Trouble Training My Dogs - Voice Commands I am having a hard time training my dogs to obey commands like "Sit" and "Roll Over", etc. When I first had only Codie, he was SO easy to train! He is such a good, sweet little boy and so obedient! But ever since I got Katie, it's been hard training them both. Katie is fresh (in a cute way) and Codie goes along w/ whatever she does. They're partners in crime! Does anyone have any advice on training dogs, especially 2 dogs at the same time? I really need my dogs to learn "STOP" or some type of command to make them stop running away when they're outside because of what happened Saturday. Here is what happened: I went to take the garbage outside and Codie and Katie ran out before I had a chance to close the screen door. So I called for them to stop running but they kept going right out of the gate. I raced after them like a mad woman (nearly having a stroke!!!) and when I said STOP, they would stop and turn around and look at me, then when I moved toward them, they would start to run again. They ran across a street (I almost died) and I finally caught them because they got distracted from sniffing a tree. Jim my hubby heard me outside and ran out to help me. I don't know if you guys are familiar w/ Brooklyn but we have BUSY streets and I was so afraid that they could get hit by car. Anyway, I NEVER let me dogs out w/out wearing a harness and leash but what if something like this happens again? I need to teach them to stop when I tell them to or else (god forbid) they can get killed. Any advice is GREATLY appreciated!!
__________________ Mommy Loves Codie, Tia & Baby Cali RIP My Precious Katie - I Love You |
Welcome Guest! | |
07-12-2005, 12:10 PM | #2 |
BANNED! Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Janesville WI
Posts: 2,483
| The best way that I could suggest it to try to separate them and work with them to start out with. Then when they are starting to get what you are telling them put them back together. |
07-12-2005, 12:13 PM | #3 |
I Love My Yorkies Donating Member Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: Indianapolis, Indiana
Posts: 37,147
| I would train them in the beginning separately too. When they start to get it you can have them respond to the commands side by side. You might want to try giving a hand signal along with the voice command. That worked well with my dogs.
__________________ Chachi's & Jewels Mom Jewels http://www.dogster.com/?132431Chachi http://www.dogster.com/?132427 |
07-12-2005, 12:17 PM | #4 |
Crazy about Kacee! Donating Member Join Date: May 2005 Location: Kansas
Posts: 21,173
| Do you have a layout in your home where you could perhaps install a child gate before you get to the door? These little "darlings" run figure eights like they are wild when they get out. I know how scared you must have been. |
07-12-2005, 12:22 PM | #5 | |
YT 1000 Club Member Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: House Of York
Posts: 1,079
| Quote:
| |
07-12-2005, 12:34 PM | #6 |
Mommy To 3 Poochies Donating Member Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: New York
Posts: 8,287
| Thanks for the good ideas.
__________________ Mommy Loves Codie, Tia & Baby Cali RIP My Precious Katie - I Love You |
07-12-2005, 12:35 PM | #7 |
BANNED! Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Janesville WI
Posts: 2,483
| Here is a site that I just posted about. You might find some good info there. http://k9deb.com/nilif.htm |
07-12-2005, 12:46 PM | #8 |
BANNED! Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: New York
Posts: 446
| Hi- help here from a NY native who knows Brooklyn! Lol. Couple of questions – Answering honestly – how good is your dog’s understanding of the commands you are using? Did you teach a “stop”? What does it mean to them? Does it mean “freeze?” Does it mean “wait for me”? What exactly are you asking your dogs to do with their bodies when you say that word? Next – does each dog respond to this command when they are alone (separated from the other?)? Can each one respond to the command on the first try (you don’t want to have to repeat a command more than once. If your dog isn’t responding the first time you ask for something – he hasn’t’ learned the command). Do you need your treats to get each dog to respond? Next – have you trained this command in different locations? Your dogs may respond to “stop” in the house but have no clue what is being asked when you are outdoors. Dogs are very context oriented and don’t generalize well. That’s’ why a very “housebroken” dog may have accidents when staying in someone else’s home. Just because your dogs will “stop” in the house, does not mean they will also “stop” in the street unless you have taught them (from the beginning, baby steps) the stop command outside as well. The reason I’m asking all these questions, as you may have already gotten the implication, is the “fact pattern” you’ve given us have two issues – not just one. Yes, there’s the “dog A learning bad stuff from dog b” but there’s also the question of how well does each dog, individually, know what is being asked of it? You need to first isolate whether your dogs will respond to you outdoors – each alone before you can address the problem of one dog not listening because of the other. As far as training two dogs are concerned, the advice you are getting about isolated them at first in training sessions is a good one. Ultimatly, though, you will need to get them working together. One idea is to use different commands for each dog (and if you are going to use any punishments such as a “No!” or any release commands such as “free” or “OK” you need to differentiate that as well. In fact, I even sell a clicker with different tones because people in multiple dog households often find that it becomes necessary to assign different tones to each dog to avoid “clicker confusion,”) |
07-12-2005, 01:15 PM | #9 |
Mom loves Gucci Donating Member Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: New York City
Posts: 6,427
| Yorkiepower, Thank you so much for all the great advise. I only have Gucci but she is beng hard to train also. We live in an apartment in NYC, Manhattan to be exact. Every time we open the door Gucci runs out ( we live in the second floor so im not worry about her running to the street). I will tell her stop or stay, sometimes she stops but others she just keeps running to our neighbors door(4 doors down). They own a Spaniel. I want to teach her to stay cause Is hard for me to run after her, i always had to scream at my kids and hubby to go after her. Oh I have even turn to bribe her with a treat to get her to come back to the apt. Im just scared if I she ever runs out to the street that she will not listen to me and get hurt. |
07-12-2005, 01:20 PM | #10 |
Mommy To 3 Poochies Donating Member Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: New York
Posts: 8,287
| Katie does not respond AT ALL when she's alone to my commands. The only command she knows is "give kisses" then she leaps over to me and starts kissing me. But that's it. Codie will obey me when he's alone but once he's with Katie, it's a whole different story. When I say stop I want them to freeze and stop what they're doing, whether it's chewing on something they aren't supposed to or running away not on a leash.
__________________ Mommy Loves Codie, Tia & Baby Cali RIP My Precious Katie - I Love You |
07-12-2005, 01:54 PM | #11 |
BANNED! Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: New York
Posts: 446
| teaching the "come" command Your fears are warranted. The “come” command is THE most important thing you can teach your dog. A year into Bun’s coming to live with us, and half a year of obedience training, I was training with some friends in a local park that back against the Southern State Parkway. Bun got scent of some “varmint” and decided that it seemed more fun than me so he took off and ran ACROSS the off ramp of the highway, only nearly missing getting hit by a car! He has never gotten screamed at before like that from me – I was ash faced and shaking when I finally threw myself on top of him in the street and rolled him to safety (that’s the second time in my life I had to do that for a dog – the first time was in Manhattan walking a Basset Hound who was afraid of men and shyed away from a guy friend of mine and snapped her collar – running into the street). Anyhow, that little four legged goofball of mine has got to have a guardian angel up there! Now days, I can heel him off lead just about ANYWHERE but that didn’t happen over night. It took a long time of patient training and consistency. I always tell people that training a dog to respond to commands is like training to build muscles. The more times you repeat the exercise, the stronger them muscle and the stronger the command. But like my advice above, you’ve got to start with baby steps. You can’t expect your dog to respond to you outside your apartment if she isn’t responding when you call INSIDE your apartment. Start with a small, defined space – you might even want to start on leash. Work on the command “come” with your dog no more than a few feet away from you – so that if she doesn’t’ come the first time you ask, you can pick up and bring her to you. At first, reward every attempt at coming to you (if you know how to use a clicker, you can reward her the instant she heads your way so she knows that she is responding to you correctly). But no repeating the command! She comes the first time you ask or you go get her and start over (you don’t want to punish her, you just want to make the correction (come means you come to me – now let’s try that again. Generally, you do not want to punish a dog for failing to come as this will only make the dog NOT want to come to you)! Karen Pryor does this thing with puppies which might work well for you – esp if you can enlist the rest of your family members. It is always better when everyone is on board because dogs are smart and they quickly learn which rules apply to which person (Bun has his “gradmaw” wrapped around his paw – he constantly begs at the table when Grandmaw is around – knowing that my mother cannot deny her granddog anything. He does NOT try that with me!). She has people sit on the floor in a circle, taking turns calling the puppy to them. As soon as the puppy comes, he gets a click and a treat. This makes for a very motivated puppy. You could start here and work up to standing up, and making the circle bigger and bigger – increasing the distance your dog needs to go from one person to another. Once you think your dog really gets it (comes on the first command), start randomly reinforcing the come – not giving a treat every time but keep her guessing when the cookie is coming. Then take the show on the road, but go back to reinfoircing every attempt when you change “venues” until your dog is again showing real understanding. |
07-12-2005, 01:58 PM | #12 | |
BANNED! Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: New York
Posts: 446
| Quote:
| |
07-12-2005, 02:08 PM | #13 |
Mom loves Gucci Donating Member Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: New York City
Posts: 6,427
| Thank you so much Yorkipower. I have to get a clicker and try that out. Once again Thank you. I will let you know how things work out. |
07-12-2005, 02:12 PM | #14 |
Minnie's Mommy Donating YT Member Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: WA State
Posts: 916
| Thank you for the lesson Yorkipower was very interesting will try it how young can they be when you start this. |
07-12-2005, 02:15 PM | #15 |
BANNED! Join Date: Mar 2005
Posts: 8,246
| Great advice Yorkipower! I love the clicker! It has saved my dogs lives!!! |
Bookmarks |
|
|
Thread Tools | |
| |
|
|
SHOP NOW: Amazon :: eBay :: Buy.com :: Newegg :: PetStore :: Petco :: PetSmart