May 17, 2011
Our dog is a 3 year old Malinois and extremely friendly to people and gets very excited when he sees other dogs. How do you train a dog to ignore others?
Full Question:
Our dog is a 3 year old Malinois and extremely friendly to people on our walks, and gets very excited when he sees other dogs.I seldom let him interact with people on our walks and never with other animals. When he sees a dog passing us he strains at his leash, gets quite excited, and will sometimes start barking.
To date I have been unable to get him to ignore any of the distractions we encounter on our walks. When it is just he and I he is fine, walks properly beside me but it isn't often that there are not other people out at the same time as we are.
How do you train a dog to ignore other animals and people? I have seen another person in our neighborhood who walks his dog off leash, and this dog ignores virtually everything around him except his owner.
Thank you,
Norm
Cindy's Answer:
Some dogs have a harder time dealing with distractions than others.
The best way to deal with this is to give the dog a job he must do on command. It can be something like “look”, where you teach him to stare at your eyes. If he is looking at your eyes, then he can’t be looking at people or dogs. This needs to be taught at home first with no distractions and then gradually add some distraction over time. Until he could do this reliably with no distractions I would refrain from walking him where there are people and dogs. You will need to build new habits and in order to do that successfully, don’t let him practice the old behaviors.
Read the article titled Training With Markers. This is the easiest way to teach dogs new behaviors quickly.
You may eventually want to go to a remote collar. This will give you a clear way to interrupt the dog’s behavior in the future when he makes a mistake or needs to have his attention refocused on you. I like the electric collar because I don’t have to make any physical movements like I would if I was giving a regular leash correction. The dog learns to focus more on me, and to listen to my voice instead of relying on waiting for me to move my arm when using the leash.
Here is information on our electric collar video.
I hope this helps.
Cindy
The best way to deal with this is to give the dog a job he must do on command. It can be something like “look”, where you teach him to stare at your eyes. If he is looking at your eyes, then he can’t be looking at people or dogs. This needs to be taught at home first with no distractions and then gradually add some distraction over time. Until he could do this reliably with no distractions I would refrain from walking him where there are people and dogs. You will need to build new habits and in order to do that successfully, don’t let him practice the old behaviors.
Read the article titled Training With Markers. This is the easiest way to teach dogs new behaviors quickly.
You may eventually want to go to a remote collar. This will give you a clear way to interrupt the dog’s behavior in the future when he makes a mistake or needs to have his attention refocused on you. I like the electric collar because I don’t have to make any physical movements like I would if I was giving a regular leash correction. The dog learns to focus more on me, and to listen to my voice instead of relying on waiting for me to move my arm when using the leash.
Here is information on our electric collar video.
I hope this helps.
Cindy
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