Older Rescue Yorkie Training
 

Hey there!

Recently, I've acquired two Yorkies through a rescue program. I'm meant to foster them for a while. I'm a long time dog owner and I've trained dogs myself, but these Yorkies that I've received are five and seven appropriately, and are very set in their ways. They're precious little things, and I have no idea how long it'll be 'til I can set them free to a new home, so I want to start training them ASAP, or at least start breaking habits.

Since I'm new to the Yorkie scene, I've tried this website, http://www.yorkietrainingtips.com and http://www.wikihow.com/Train-a-Yorkie, among other sites, but I'm not seeing much success with either that or traditional training techniques. They're very set in their ways. Since I'm more used to training dogs from when they're puppies or at least around a year or two, when they seem more malleable and easy to train, and I'm a bit lost here.

Does anyone have any advice, any tips? Where do I start? I want to make these Yorkies as attractive to a potential new family as possible, and getting them to obey commands as quickly as possible is my goal.

Can you give some examples of what they are doing?

It would probably be easier for me to tell you what they're NOT doing. Since I posted here I've had someone suggest I get a clicker, and I've done that and have seen a mild degree of success. I'm thinking that I'm doing it right, I just need to be more patient. Still, any advice is welcome.

As for what they're doing, well, once they got accustomed to their new surroundings, everything that they were allowed to do before, I'd imagine. Climbing on furniture, jumping off of it (which is fairly dangerous from what I hear), barking at everything, just overall bad behavior. From the looks of it, I don't think their last owners really trained them. On the plus side, at least they were easily housebroken.

I would be interested to hear what folks have to say on this topic too. I adopted a 7 year old yorkie a couple of months ago. He doesn't have any bad behavior—he is really great, actually—but because of his good personality, I'd like to start working on basic obedience and eventually try the Good Canine Citizen test with him. He is highly food motivated, so that is a plus, but won't really play!

I foster all the time and they are never puppies. I've had success training them all. The most important thing is to pick a style and stick with it. Everyone in the house has to be on board bc if they aren't they are basically sabotaging you and the training.

Potty training begins with feeding times. Feed at the same time each day and you can estimate what time they need to go out. Also take them out on a schedule so they can eventually come to expect a pattern. Dogs are creatures of habit.

For trick training, I would suggest to use feeding times for tricks. If you try to trick train when they aren't hungry, they won't be at their full attention. Conversely, don't feed all fatty "treats" for training and then they don't want to eat their regular food. Have a piece of food in your hand and lead the nose. The head will lead the body.

If you don't want to dogs on the furniture, when they jump up on it, say No or Uh uh and point off. When they jump off give them a treat. Or if you don't want them to jump off, pick them off and treat them, or say Good Boy. Sometimes simple petting is enough to let them know they did a behavior you like.

Make them wait at doors. You go thru doors first and they don't until you give them the ok. For this you need to teach "stay" or "wait". It's important to teach stay correctly. Do not have them stay for a bit them say "good" and then have them run to you. This just teaches them to stay for a bit then go running. Have them stay and you back away a few steps. Then you come back to them and treat. Lengthen the time and the distance each time until you can leave the room and they still stay.

Thanks for the advice capt_noonie, I'll keep those things in mind!

Lots of good advice here.
All dogs can be trained, age is really not an issue, but patience is the big issue.
Older dogs have to unlearn so it may take more patients and persistence. Also fosters might have some abuse issues that come into play.

Good luck!