May 17, 2011
I recently purchased your DVD on Basic Obedience Training. My dog has been doing well with the marker/treats training but will ignore me if I don't have any. Ideas?
Full Question:
I recently purchased your DVD on Basic Obedience Training. My dog is a two year old Yellow Lab. He has been doing well with the marker/treats training. He knows very well the basic commands of sit, down, and stay. He is very attentive when we do the training with treats. However, if we are somewhere and I don't have treats, or if he is distracted by the presence of someone else, he pretty much just ignores me. It's like he is saying 'I know what I'm supposed to do, but if you're not giving me a treat, forget it!'Where do I go from here?
Doug
Cindy's Answer:
Hi Doug,
You’ve only had the video for a month, and that is WAY too early to be testing the training without any rewards. My advice is to back up your training and continue using rewards, especially in the face of distractions. By not giving him treats this early in the training/learning process you are teaching him to “check out” and ignore you. Dogs need to be rewarded a lot at first, then you go to random rewards to keep them trying all the time.
I’d highly recommend The Power of Training Dogs with Food, I think you’ll get a lot out of it.
Please check out our streaming video section. Go to the Michael Ellis section and look over some of the free video available there too.
I hope this helps.
Cindy Rhodes
You’ve only had the video for a month, and that is WAY too early to be testing the training without any rewards. My advice is to back up your training and continue using rewards, especially in the face of distractions. By not giving him treats this early in the training/learning process you are teaching him to “check out” and ignore you. Dogs need to be rewarded a lot at first, then you go to random rewards to keep them trying all the time.
I’d highly recommend The Power of Training Dogs with Food, I think you’ll get a lot out of it.
Please check out our streaming video section. Go to the Michael Ellis section and look over some of the free video available there too.
I hope this helps.
Cindy Rhodes
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