Thanks for the info so far! Things have been getting better. When I first posted my wife and I were just worried parents not wanting to do the right thing but not knowing what the right thing is!
The obedience training is going well. So far, we have been making sure to challenge her with sit exercises for her food. The most difficult thing now is the walk, because she gets distracted and wants to go every which way, but she has been rather consistent and knows to stay on our right side and walk loosely, not pulling. She stops sometimes to sniff around or something but then quickly gets moving since we don't stop.
Her barking has subsided, but it is still there. I really don't mind if she barks at a strange person approaching the house, but if there are kids outside playing we don't want her incessantly barking at them from in the house.
We have the Cesar Millan Mastering Leadership DVDs, but the "CH" sound (snapping her "out of it") doesn't work at all. She is a puppy and when she is in her zone it is easier to say "Let's Go" (combined with our trainer's technique of rewarding her for walking with us, starting with one step at a time) and keep walking.
Despite loving Cesar, we are going to stick with the trainer's methods of positive clicker reinforcement. That means ignoring the bad and rewarding the good. The methodology is that if the pup is doing something that we don't like, giving her any kind of attention is just reinforcing the behavior. For example, when she barks we ignore it, don't pull her leash, don't say anything and when she stops for a second, even to catch her breath, we click and give her a treat. And to be honest, after just a few days (since this past Saturday, so 4 days) we have seen significant improvements.
I'll keep you all updated!
(Picture: Rain, rain, go away!)
__________________ Zac, Lea & Lacey |