Ad blocker detected: Our website is made possible by displaying online advertisements to our visitors. Please consider supporting us by disabling your ad blocker on our website.
Tulip wrote:I use NILIF, but, I've used it straight from the very beginning, so my two are used to it. I can imagine it would be confusing for an adult dog, though I've seen personally teenage dogs that are getting too big for their boots do well on it.
Imagine it's much easier if it's all they know and if you know what you're doing, which I certainly didn't at the time.
Poor Little Bear, I sometimes think he must have looked at me and thought 'what the bleedin' heck is she doing now?!'
Freddy was luckily a really easy dog to begin my training fanatics with! Confident, quiet, and overall a close bond to me, so he did really well on NILIF. Maisy did just as well on it, but she's more clingy so definately benefits from it more.
And yes, sometimes I wonder what dogs think of their owners, especially when trying a new training method, LOL! 'You've always taught me to greet new dogs, now you're making me walk away from them?!'
Tulip wrote:Freddy was luckily a really easy dog to begin my training fanatics with! Confident, quiet, and overall a close bond to me, so he did really well on NILIF. Maisy did just as well on it, but she's more clingy so definately benefits from it more.
And yes, sometimes I wonder what dogs think of their owners, especially when trying a new training method, LOL! 'You've always taught me to greet new dogs, now you're making me walk away from them?!'
They sound heavenly! Wanna swap?! Just kidding.
I love my two to distraction, but they're seriously hard work. On the bright side, they've made some good progress and I've said if I can sort these two out I'm going to start training polar bears to tap dance...!
Little Bear wrote:I love my two to distraction, but they're seriously hard work. On the bright side, they've made some good progress and I've said if I can sort these two out I'm going to start training polar bears to tap dance...!
[laughing]
Now THAT I'd pay good money to see! (giggle)
Cara and Mo, two black mini's and Molly a black & white Heinz 57 all served by Elaine, the cook, poop picker, and chief toy thrower. I live by the Mini Schnauzer code; when in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout!
Thank you all so so much for taking the time to add such helpful responses.
Mari - I am going to try that technique out straight away. Flynn is very much a play, rather than food, driven dog. He LOVES to play and had a couple of favourite toys so I shall put one away as a special 'walking toy' and try and increase its value over time. My other half already has the 'ready' thing down - you should see them in the garden racing up and down together - 'ready' is already the buzz word for Flynn - (you'd think my husband was 13 not 33 sometimes!) I guess we need to get that playtime working harder for Flynn in terms of training.
We've also started going back to basics a bit on basic training as he's pausing before he sits on the whistle now (or when we give the vocal command) which he never used to do before. He's pretty good on a whistle recall as well, so will start upping the ante on that one as well.
We do walk in the same place everyday so will also start varying the direction of the walk and the location when we can. We take him running there as well sometimes so that changes things a bit for him.
Great if it was for some use.
Just a couple of more things to remember/clarify. When I said to "give a little pop on the lead" to get his attention if he looks at the dog rather than you and your toy I really mean "a gentle pop", just enough to to distract him, and refocus on you...be very careful not to increse his interest/aggression towards other dogs by pulling him towards you, away from the other dog. I am sure you have noticed that tight lead increases the level of arousal, and therefore possible increases aggression. Loose lead, and make yourself more interesting than the other dog.
The other thing I need to mention again is that these methods aim to avoid the problem of aggression towards other dog, and to offer a new, positive behavioural pattern to your dog. Aim is to re-program your dog's mind "seeing dog means that I get to play with my mum and fav toy, great! I see a dog, mum, let's play!"
If you don't tirelessly practice the play and distraction, and even worse, if you let your dog play with many novel dogs, the learning will be slower and dog will become confused. The excitement of playing with a dog will most likely always over-ride the excitement of you and the toy. So, if you let him play with other dogs, you'll lessen your chances of taking the control over situation. In stead of creating new, positive behvioral patterns for him, you'll confuse him and dilute the effect of your toy, and eventually loose it.
I am sure you already knew this, but I thought it is important to highlight that again.
Happy playing, and thank God for playful 33 year olds! You OH can not incorperate to the play sessions some quick, energetic basic obedience- start play session, play a bit, then suddenly stop, say "sit", and as soon as he sits, play again. In that way the obedience becomes really fast as well, as it is all trained in drive (play) (cool)
