Okay... retraining dogs?

Sooooo......I know there are some dog people out there in rabbittalk cyberspace...I need to work on this 2 1/2 yr old dog. He is AWSOME with kids, gives them a nice quiet welcome and then ignores everything they do. He is partially trained to sit, laydown, and heel, although he needs work. Stay, just not in his vocab yet. this dog is ON THE GO. He's a good dog.

Oh, he is too interested in my other animals. I know you can train that out but have never done it...tips?

Any dog tips are great, because even if I have heard it, read it, maybe I'll see it differently. he's very smart, and has only a few bad habits.

does he have a good concept of what family is?

my VERY prey focused dog thought rabbits were food until I took EACH and every rabbit out and gave a tap on the nose with the word FAMILY. NO... FAMILY!

wouldn't touch them there after unless one got loose and ran right under the nose...and then well... stupid rabbit...

it may be a good idea to try some introduction to them. honestly, I think he is more curious than anything, although all bets are off if the rabbit gets loose, I'm sure. lol. him and wallace HATE eather. He's basically like a great BIG puppy, even though he is grown

what breed is he?

you may try to teach him "leave it".. and reinforce that giving him a treat when he does leave it alone... so he gets that leaving the bunnies be will get him yummy treats..

dogs are smart and I´m sure he´ll learn.. you just gotta find out what motivates him.. and what might trigger his prey drive so you can control that

He's a black lab mix, and is HUGE. He stands taller than my two year old, lol. Leave it is another good idea. I'm going to carry around a little bag of his dog food, so I have something to reinforce his training.

He now sees me as boss dog, and must see Scott (hubby) as a subordinate. Espessially because he is big, I told hubs that he really needs to watch himself and not to let Dakota get away with being big. Caelin just came home from an overnight stay with his aunty, and Dakota seems very calm around Caelin's high pitched (doddie!) screaches.

I seem to believe that Dogs either are or aren't,
that is they tend to do what they want when they want without supervision.
They can be scary or they can be a cream-puff when they choose to.
I had a Dog who was naturally fond of ALL living creatures.
He passed on quite awhile ago. I still miss him very much.
Mickey was my helper whenever a rabbit escaped. I would tell him to find the rabbit
and he would I would go one direction and he the other.
He caught them every time and never harmed a hare on their head.
He would hold them gently in his mouth and whimper until i got there
to take the bunny and place it back in it's cage.
The way I found out he was so inclined was: While working in the rabbitry
I noticed that Mickey was nowhere to be seen. We called him, no answer.
I had built a large wooden box that I used to let young Dutch rabbits
romp around in. The box was 4Ft. by 6Ft. When we found Mickey he was
in the box with the rabbits climbing all over him, he was in heaven!
I will try to find the picture if you are interested.
Dennis, C.V.R.

Nice story, Dennis! I'd love to see a thread with a photo of Mickey with the bunnies. (I'm a sucker for happy critter stories.)

I would love a pic, too! great story!

I figure Koda will need supervision about animals, but maybe he can become better trained, so he can resist the urge to bolt out the door after cats.

LEAVE IT or OFF are terrific commands to teach

but doggy zen is fabulous too - as it teaches what is often referred to as impulse control ... as the leaving it is the dog's own choice ... based on the premack principle . . . I love it

start with kibble clenched in your fist the SECOND your dog backs off your fist (and yes some people need to wear gloves for some dogs) say YES and "open the bar" - ie open your fist and feed treats

close the fist - wait the dog out again - say nothing do nothing - just wait - again the second the dog backs off open the bar

repeat ...

it doesn't take long for dogs to get the concept of doggy zen - then you can add a cue - easy.. or whatever and next thing you know you say easy and the dog backs off whatever a little

Sally killed wild rabbits this summer - so when the JW escaped and she foudn them I was very very worried - she chased a little til I called easy - (and LEAVE IT the first time ) as I was nervous - she backed off and the rabbits ended up back in the run untouched ...
She will stand in front of their run very intently staring but doggyzen prevails and she stays calm

the bolting out the door can be worked on too - with a similar principle - a default behaviour at a door (all my dogs have different defaults - sit, down and eye contact are the three I use most often) get the dog what they want. With a bolter I would work on sit or down as the automatic behaviour most likely. So, and this takes patience, the door does not open for the dog until a default behavious is performed and there is a release offered.
If he is crated this is a concept easily learned in a crate once the dog has a default behaviour - crate is shut - door opens - dog tries pushing out - door is firmly shut - try again - try again - the SECOND the default is offered the release word is given (ok, break, go whatever works for the adults) and the dog is allowed to exit the crate .. I have done it with non crate trained dogs too - often starting with getting out of a car

ummm a default behaviour is one that is offered when the dog wants something or isn't sure what else to do ..

helpful? or confusing? if you have questions please ask - I work my dogs daily - they run competetive agility and I have titled other dogs in obedience as well - I am a positive trainer but I was a pretty traditional trainer so have a varied toolbox to suit people's needs (and an understanding of thier toolbox)

We have dog with a strong prey drive and I don't have as much time and patience as I should, so I will never probably trust him with chickens or rabbits alone. But we did break him of going after our indoor cats and the same training has worked for other things, including chickens and rabbits while I am there. First we made sure he knew his place with people.

People go first thru doors. People eat first, you don't put your feet on people, you don't stare at a person who has food...When a person puts down a dish of food you "wait" until they say "ok". We aren't afraid to grab him by the collar or scruff and put him firmly back in a down/stay if he gets up. Though he is big, he is basically gentle, so even a three year old could make him lay down.

If he was bugging the cats or acting like he was hunting the chickens, we told him "No! Leave it!", put him in a down/stay (time out!), and made him stay there until he gave up trying to get up and go back to what ever it was. It took a lot of time at first, but it paid off. If I am holding a bunny and he gets all excited, I glare and say "Leave it!" and he slinks off quick before I make him lay down! :lol:

the program eco2pia is describing can be found in detail by googling NILIF or Nothing In Life Is Free

I like it as it can be done through positive training

For ours we used "uh-uh" for you're starting to do something momma doesn't like. NO! was reserved for very bad. Both our dogs and cats respond to it and have learned the difference between momma's birds or other critter and outside not-the-momma's critters.

Consistency is the biggest key. And the rules need to be the same from all the humans. Labs love to please so it should be easy to teach him.

Shannon

Brody":2ct43hlh said:

the program eco2pia is describing can be found in detail by googling NILIF or Nothing In Life Is Free

I like it as it can be done through positive training

Click to expand...

Wow, I didn't know it had a name! it was just how grandpa did it! :lol:

start with kibble clenched in your fist the SECOND your dog backs off your fist (and yes some people need to wear gloves for some dogs) say YES and "open the bar" - ie open your fist and feed treats

Click to expand...

My shiba would never give up. My akita would never try to get it without permission in the first place. The shiba is the pain in the rear to train. It's hard to get moments to praise her because she throws herself blindly in to things and continues despite it never getting her what she wants and even if it causes her pain to try. I've spent hours in front of the door out of the house trying to get proper behavior out of her so the door can be opened. I usually end up putting her in a down and standing on the leash so I can finally do something without her accomplishing negative behavior in the process. You can hold that dog down by the scruff or muzzle until she starts shrieking and as soon as you let go she'll do it again. I know someone with a shiba who held their dog down for 45mins and even got the cops called by the neighbors to see what the noise was before they got things through to the dog. :lol: In the end we found a snoot loop is invaluable. It works like a halti or gentle leader with a few differences. She can't hang herself at the end of the leash damaging her own neck trying to get something. She can't lunge or lean a certain direction. If she tries to go forward she ends up going sideways through no effort on our part. Her first experience with the thing she pitched one impressive fit trying to lunge at the chickens and then suddenly just sat down quietly next to me. Now whenever the snoot loop is put on her she just sits or lays down and waits. It does no good to try to go anywhere because she just gets routed back where she started. This is the dog that broke my opinion of any dog being trainable to be trustworthy when supervised. Now I have to say most dogs can eventually be trusted around anything while supervised (I'm not touching unsupervised interaction). The shiba generally gets kicked out of the room/building if an animal is out of it's cage unless she's already wearing her snoot loop.

My akita on the other hand has just as high of prey drive but unlike shibas they were used as guard dogs and have been used as service dogs. They have a desire to protect and to work with people even if they still have a strong independent streak. Any dog with guarding and good family/pack instinct can be taught to include other critters under their protection. It's easier with dogs that have a lower prey drive but despite having killed wild rabbits I've had minimal incidents with my akita and bunnies. The only real incident was in play with the rabbit initiating the whole thing. The rabbit failed to realize akitas are not just a head nudging them and after bouncing at her face repeatedly got flattened by a paw. He now acts like all dogs are going to eat him even though he started it and was not injured. :roll:

"Easy" is just as important of a command as "leave it" with a big dog unless you never want it to interact with anything smaller. Some people do train their dog to only ignore things it could potentially injure but with 5 sugar gliders, 4 parakeets, poultry, rabbits, and cats along with occasionally seeing kids that makes a pretty narrow world for my dog. So we run sort of on the 3 strike policy. I make a negative noise and tell her easy about 3 times. If she hasn't learned to let up she gets told no and to leave it. If she can't do that she gets to join the shiba in being kicked out of the room/building. Since most dogs hate being separated from the pack it generally doesn't take long for them to learn self control in order to be where the people are. She was initially taught leave it during obedience classes with treats on the floor. Stay practice can also be worked in to leave it practice pretty effectively. If the dog does leave the treat alone you can tell them to stay and go pick it up to bring to them. If they don't stay you put it back down and put them back in the same position. Until you have a very solid leave it command never let the dog approach the object you told them not to touch. Always bring it to them if you want to use it as a reward or to release them to interact with it.

Also very important especially with cats is to never let your dog chase something. If they have a tendency to chase put them on a rope, electronic collar (I know it's controversial but used the right way they work for many dogs), etc... so you can stop them. Every time they get to chase something without permission it makes it 100 times more difficult to teach them self control and leave it type commands. It's best not to get in to a situation where you might not be able to stop or control the dog rather than trying to undo it afterward.

We are lucky with our cats--they don't run. 7-10 pounds of growling teeth and claws is a pretty fair deterrant for my big sissy. If I had a rooster to teach him with I'd never worry about the chickens again, either. I guess I should borrow one of your attack rabbits, huh guys?

And, yes, "easy" is invaluable! Especially with timid toddlers...