Heart Like a Dog

The Good, the Bad, and the Oh My God of living with dogs!

How Do You Train Two Dogs?

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Part of the new training program Delilah and I are taking is to practice at home what we learned in class.

Here’s the problem I’m having.

Every time I pull out the treat bag, both dogs run over and sit in front of me.

I say, Delilah wait and walk about six feet away.

I look at Delilah and say front.

Both dogs run and sit in front of me.

You called?

I say yes and give the treat to Delilah.

I say Sampson wait and walk about six feet away.

I look at Sampson and say front.

Both dogs run and sit in front of me.

How do people with multiple dogs train?

I had this post all planned out and then….

I saw a video by Pamela at Something Wagging This Way Comes.  It seems Pamela is always helping me out with something!

Pamela was working with Honey while Cherie stood on the sidelines cheering them on.

Suddenly it all made sense!  Separate the dogs!

Why didn’t I think of this?

My house is fairly open, so I can’t gate one-off, but I can put one in the bedroom while I work the other or leave one in the house and work the other outside.

Thanks Pamela, once again you’re a lifesaver. 😉

Of course when we are out on the trail and both dogs respond you won’t hear me complaining. 🙂

A Really Good Recall

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As you know, I’ve really been struggling with Delilah and her recall.

I think for the most part it is my fault, I think I have sullied the word.

For whatever reason Sampson’s recall is come, Delilah’s is here, but they respond to many things.  Number one being their names which I think is good,  but a lot of times when we are walking I say this way or et eh.

I’ve had some success with getting her to return with the front command, which I think is perfectly acceptable for a recall.

I’ve really been working her lately with the here command.  Of course she is still on the 15 foot lead so she doesn’t have much opportunity to get too far away.  I try to call her back to me at least once every five minutes or so.  I also say it very loud with a slight hint of panic in my voice.  I figure if she ever gets too far away, my recall will be consistent. 😉

I’m really good at the 15 foot on leash recall.

Last night I found a sure-fire recall.

We were in the back part of the woods on one of the steeper trails.  For some reason the spiders back here love to create little tight ropes between trees.  Maybe they like to have parties at night, I’m not really too sure.

I am sure that I would like them to make their little tight ropes a wee bit higher.

I’m sick of catching them across my face.

Every once in a while one of those little suckers gets really industrious and builds a web across the trail.

I don’t mind that so much as long as they aren’t occupying it when I cross it. 🙁

Yeah, I don’t like spiders.

At. All.

Last night there was a web, right across my path.

And it was occupied.

The spider was pretty small, but that doesn’t really matter to me.

I still don’t want it crawling on me.

Did I mention I don’t like spiders?

In my shock, I dropped the leash and prepared myself to do battle.  Oh and I also screamed a little Ahhhh Ahhhh.

Wouldn’t you know it, Delilah came running right back to me?

Then I used the end of her leash to smack that tight rope out of my way, while the spider grabbed his prey and ran.

You don’t have to run little spider, I don’t want your nasty old bug.

The things I endure, all for the sake of my dogs.

Training Tidbits

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Delilah and I got to class a bit early on Tuesday so I’d have the opportunity to discuss her reactivity with our instructor, Jackie.

Jackie’s suggestion is to practice the look command.  Some people call it watch, others use look; it really is just a matter of preference.

To train look you put a tiny treat between your thumb and middle finger, then with your pointer finger extended bring your finger up to your nose and say look.  When the dog looks directly into your eyes, YES and reward.

Unless you are using the clicker, yes is always the marker.  Not good girl, yes.

Once you have your dog looking at your when you say look, you will want to add distractions.

We started the distractions like this.  Grab two large, yummy treats one in each hand and place your hands straight down against your legs.  Now raise your arms out like you are making a ‘T’ and say look.  It may take a few minutes for your dog to get it, that’s okay, once your dog looks you in the eyes, yes (or click if you are using the clicker) and treat.

You will begin to increase your distractions the longer you train.  This will become so ingrained in your dog that if a squirrel darts in front of you, you should be able to say look and refocus your dog on you.   Now that I’ve written that, I would say you could also use focus.

Jackie said that I really need to watch Delilah’s body language and it’s true, I can usually tell when she is going to react by the way she stiffens her body.   The thing is I can never tell which dog she will react to!

While Jackie and I were standing talking, two dogs came in and nothing.  The next dog, BAM.  I quickly said Delilah look and she spun around to me!

Yay success!!  Except I wasn’t supposed to use her name.

Since Jackie had Delilah and I working on look, she thought the rest of the class should work on it as well.   Some of them have trained previously with her so they were allowed to go straight to trying the distraction portion.  Delilah and I just worked on look.

This class has about eight dogs in it and all the owners are women.

I don’t know all the breeds of dogs but I am slowly learning their names.  Jersey is a little black pit bull type dog, who in the previous two weeks came only with her mom.  Tuesday night her mom AND dad came to class.

Jersey’s dad said, she won’t look at me, all she does is bark.

Jackie said, you may have to lure her with a treat.

To which he replied, I don’t want to use treats, I want her to look at me because I asked her to.

My inner bitch silently screamed, that is such a male attitude!  You must do what I say because I am the man and I am the alpha and dominate being.

I almost said it out loud, but I somehow restrained myself.

Jackie then said well if that’s the case, then you should leave the room when she barks at you and only come back in when she is calm.

He spent the rest of the night going in and out the door.

My inner bitch was laughing herself silly.

With about 10 minutes to go we went outside to work on recalls, using a long check cord.  Jackie wanted us outside so we could spread out.

I kept Delilah in the parking lot while everyone else found spots on the grass.

I surreptitiously took a few pictures.  They aren’t great shots and you’ll have to excuse the dumpsters, but I wanted a picture of Jersey’s dad for this post.

Jersey’s dad, noticed the crossed arms.  He’s not open to this type of training. 🙂

This is Milo and his mom working on his recall with the check cord.

And here is my pretty girl, tired after doing so much work.

Would you stop flashing that? You keep jerking the wheel and I’m trying to sleep!

I’m excited to be working with Delilah on look.  I think this is going to be a great tool for us.

Oh we also got our clickers last night and started teaching touch.  But that’s for another post.

What do you think?  Have you ever used this command with a reactive dog and did you have success or not?

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