First I want to say how awesome you are for taking this 7 year old. Am sure he will have a great home !!!
Have you ever worked with clicker training? When my mother died I took her 9 year old Poodle. When I gave the Poodle to mother, she was about 15 weeks old and had her about potty trained and sit and down. Mother didn't keep up with this and so I had to train her all over again. I hired a trainer because there were a lot of things that need to be corrected. The first thing the trainer did was clicker train her. At first she wasn't connecting the dots - click-treat click-treat. Trainer worked with her for two sessions and she finally got it. Have used the clicker with her for just about everything from potty to stay, go to bed, etc. Now she will do all kinds of things for me with no clicker. it was a great tool for an older dog and am even trying it on my 5 mo old pups and they are getting it. A dog can only remember for about 1-2 seconds, but if you hit the clicker in that 1-2 seconds they associate it with something good. There are a lot of you tubes on this - you might want to watch and see if you want to give it a try.
Good Luck |