May 11, 2011
My 10 month old Rottweiler is being trained with Michael Ellis’s methods. When my dog doesn't do his positions, how should I correct him? How can I motivate him too?
Full Question:
Cindy,Hello, first of all great info I have received from your newsletters and the question and answer part of the webpage.
I have a 10 month old rottweiler that I am training with Michael Ellis methods. I have the 3 DVDs and I have followed them through. I have two questions on them. When I am asking my dog positions, sometimes he makes a mistake or just stares at me, this is usually when I am 2-3 feet away in front of him. Should I correct with an e-collar or a prong collar when he doesn't do the position I am asking or what should I do? He does know all the positions and does them well almost always, this question is only when those few times he does not comply.
Also another question I have is, that my dog seems like he doesn't have energy. I am feeding EVO red meat formula to him which he seems to like a lot, but he seems to not have energy. I put him on a treadmill walking for an hour daily and he ends up exhausted. When I take him training for bite work he trains only a few minutes before he is very tired. At first I though it was normal, because he was not used to work, but now he has been working for 2-3 months and it seems the same. He doesn't like to run for long periods of time. He likes the tug a lot but sometimes he wants to work and some others he doesn't. I do not know what to do to make him more motivated to doing exercise and to work on bite work.
Thank you
Cindy's Answer:
Thanks for the kind words.
At 10 months old, I would not be correcting your dog with a prong or ecollar for making mistakes. Make sure he’s not distracted and make sure you are being fair to him. If you are following Ellis’s methods you will not be giving corrections to a puppy other than a verbal marker when he’s wrong.
I also would recommend you take your pup to the vet and have him xrayed to make sure he is structurally sound. I think a treadmill for an hour is not only too long for a dog of this age, it’s got to be incredibly boring for him too. He’s a large breed dog, that has a lot of growing left to do. I would only work short sessions and don’t work him to the point of him losing drive or getting so tired he doesn’t want to participate. You can effectively ruin him for the work by making it unpleasant.
Try having short, fun and upbeat sessions with him. Look at what you are doing from his point of view. He’s an adolescent and right now you want to build the desire to learn and interact with you, not drill him until he starts disliking the training process.
I hope this helps.
Cindy Rhodes
At 10 months old, I would not be correcting your dog with a prong or ecollar for making mistakes. Make sure he’s not distracted and make sure you are being fair to him. If you are following Ellis’s methods you will not be giving corrections to a puppy other than a verbal marker when he’s wrong.
I also would recommend you take your pup to the vet and have him xrayed to make sure he is structurally sound. I think a treadmill for an hour is not only too long for a dog of this age, it’s got to be incredibly boring for him too. He’s a large breed dog, that has a lot of growing left to do. I would only work short sessions and don’t work him to the point of him losing drive or getting so tired he doesn’t want to participate. You can effectively ruin him for the work by making it unpleasant.
Try having short, fun and upbeat sessions with him. Look at what you are doing from his point of view. He’s an adolescent and right now you want to build the desire to learn and interact with you, not drill him until he starts disliking the training process.
I hope this helps.
Cindy Rhodes
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