May 18, 2011
My 1 year old Great Pyrenees escapes from all attempts to chain her and then will not come when called. She just runs around barking. What can I do?
Full Question:
We have a year old Great Pyrenees bitch that I have been looking forward to breeding. She is incredibly obedient even to the subtlest commands when she is in your immediate care. However, we live in a hilly rural area and when she is allowed to be unrestrained she completely rebels against any command and runs all over tyrannically barking and disappearing into the hollows. She has somehow escaped every method of restraint no matter how I've chained her. We have yet to complete a farm fence around the yard, but it seems that nothing short of prison fence would contain her. She's jumped several barricades also. Would some method of subduing her barking possibly discourage this over vigilant behavior? I just don't get it. When she has some sort of restraint she has the most pleasant demeanor. I would greatly appreciate your input. I put a lot of stock in what I've followed of your articles.Sincerely
J.D.
Cindy's Answer:
To begin with this dog is only partially trained. You are missing the most important part of dog training and that's the correction/distraction phase. If you would like to learn something about the principles of obedience training a dog, read the description for my Basic Dog Obedience video. You will probably find that you have not had the full picture on the steps of training a dog must go through before it can be considered fully trained. You can also read why I am not a fan of taking an untrained dog to obedience classes.
Once you understand the principles of obedience training, you then need to determine what method of correction to use (either a prong collar or an electric collar). Which one you use will depend on your training skills.
Training the recall is not a difficult exercise, but you are going beyond this. You are trying to do this in addition to problem-solve a situation. You are asking about containment, barking and coming. These are three different issues.
Chaining a dog is never a good option as a permanent method of confinement. It's OK for an hour or two but that's all. Normal permanent containment can be a normal dog kennel with a top or an in-ground Innotek fence that we sell and use at my kennel.
Barking can be solved with a No-bark collar. You can find information on the Tri Tronics No-Bark Collar on my web site. I use 15 of them in my kennel almost every day. We put them on at night and take them off in the morning. I could not run my kennel without them.
The Recall needs to be taught under distraction. This is covered in my tape. You ability to accomplish this will depend on you and not the dog. It depends on your consistency and ability to administer effective corrections (a lot of people cannot do this).
Once you understand the principles of obedience training, you then need to determine what method of correction to use (either a prong collar or an electric collar). Which one you use will depend on your training skills.
Training the recall is not a difficult exercise, but you are going beyond this. You are trying to do this in addition to problem-solve a situation. You are asking about containment, barking and coming. These are three different issues.
Chaining a dog is never a good option as a permanent method of confinement. It's OK for an hour or two but that's all. Normal permanent containment can be a normal dog kennel with a top or an in-ground Innotek fence that we sell and use at my kennel.
Barking can be solved with a No-bark collar. You can find information on the Tri Tronics No-Bark Collar on my web site. I use 15 of them in my kennel almost every day. We put them on at night and take them off in the morning. I could not run my kennel without them.
The Recall needs to be taught under distraction. This is covered in my tape. You ability to accomplish this will depend on you and not the dog. It depends on your consistency and ability to administer effective corrections (a lot of people cannot do this).
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