This weekend was an interesting weekend at obedience school with Jake and I wanted to share a great technique. The class was probably made more interesting due to the fact Jake was separated from the class due to bad behaviour. His training is actually going well at home, but at obedience school, he can't focus on anything but playing with the other dogs; leash discipline, sit, stay, recall all goes out the window! It was frustrating but one of the obedience trainers taught me something that seems to be changing everything and make training him so much easier.
The trainer determined that Jake doesn't pay enough attention to me, so we spent the entire class standing in one place (in the middle of the training area - really embarassing!). I stood there and Jake sat in front of me, he wasn't afforded much leash "room" and I was not permitted to solicit his attention by pulling or saying his name - I was basically a tree. Everytime he looked up at me, which wasn't often at first, I would praise him and give him a treat. He gradually got better and by the end of the class he was focussed on me, looking at me every 5-10 seconds. His focus totally shifted from all the distractions to me, which is pretty impressive given the fact there are about 20+ puppies in the room. When I took him for his walks yesterday and today, he was noticably good with leash discipline. He didn't pull, stayed by my side, and looked up at me constantly. It was almost a dream come true!
I thought this was a marvelous technique (even though we missed out on other exercises), but I've never heard of this before and it may be very beneficial to other people working on training and can't seem to maintain their dogs attention. Just wanted to share.
The trainer determined that Jake doesn't pay enough attention to me, so we spent the entire class standing in one place (in the middle of the training area - really embarassing!). I stood there and Jake sat in front of me, he wasn't afforded much leash "room" and I was not permitted to solicit his attention by pulling or saying his name - I was basically a tree. Everytime he looked up at me, which wasn't often at first, I would praise him and give him a treat. He gradually got better and by the end of the class he was focussed on me, looking at me every 5-10 seconds. His focus totally shifted from all the distractions to me, which is pretty impressive given the fact there are about 20+ puppies in the room. When I took him for his walks yesterday and today, he was noticably good with leash discipline. He didn't pull, stayed by my side, and looked up at me constantly. It was almost a dream come true!
I thought this was a marvelous technique (even though we missed out on other exercises), but I've never heard of this before and it may be very beneficial to other people working on training and can't seem to maintain their dogs attention. Just wanted to share.
