Hi all,

My 7 month old Akita girl is doing great. We've got a very good baseline. We are on the official 6 month countdown to housebreaking (no mistakes for the last 2 months so far). She's got the run of the house now but still eats and occasionally naps in her crate. No mischief to speak of while on her own or at night. I have successfully taught her not to dig holes, counter-surf, eat the cat food (which sits out) and not to chase the cats. Her socialization is great, she loves everyone and everything except for aggressive dogs which she shies away from. We've graduated from puppy kindergarten and a local "AKC-style" basic obedience class. She knows sit, down, up, stay, come, with me (heel) and go (crate, house, home, truck, outside) and a bunch of other less relevant words. Pees and poops practically on command, "asks" to go when she's got an unexpected requirement.

So I don't really have much to complain about, but I'd like to sharpen up our (and I stress "our") performance. She's very lead-wise and training-wise. I use a long lead already. Basically she's got the whole Akita attitude thing going on. Even with food rewards she can be very slow to perform. For example, if she gets in that mood she'll sit, but turn to face away from me first or face away from the center of the training ring, or even refuse the command even with food reward. Her attention on me is substantially less than rapt. We play the "name game" (call her name, give her a reward if she pays attention) a lot, which has helped some.

It's funny, the big stuff requiring big corrections, like hole digging and cat chasing, was easy. The little stuff is proving to be more difficult (except stay, boy can she stay, especially if it's down-stay, that lazy girl :-)

So I seem to be a respected leader in all areas except basic obedience where my leadership is weak. Any suggestions on how to improve that and break through what I'm very loosely calling the Akita attitude are most appreciated.

Thanks,

Scott

Hi, Scott <:-)

My Akita bitch will be 2 years old on 05.JAN.07, and her offlead obedience was perfected overnight by using an e-collar -- 7 months of age is NOT too young to start IF you memorize Ed Frawley's remote trainer technique on his DVD...

http://www.leerburg.com/318.htm

I'd order it ASAP if I were you & believe me, you'll THANK him -- You can read my personal recommendation of his e-collar DVD & my Innotek IUT-300 remote system on that link !

Two more of Ed's videos that are REALLY worth it would be...

http://www.leerburg.com/120.htm & http://www.leerburg.com/302.htm

If this is your first Akita, please be aware of the fact that they don't usually appreciate L-O-N-G lessons, so be sure to keep her training sessions very short (like 2-3 minutes only, multiple times throughout the day) -- And the BEST thing about an e-collar is that you do NOT need to give your dog "zap" corrections, because they become instantly voice-command reliable (at least mine did, since both were already obedient onlead, so they had a head-start on the remote).

Hi Scott

I would be very interested in knowing what you did to stop hole digging/yard destruction. Was it being present and catching her in the act or did you also do something else?

Best regards,
Sarah

This made me remember an incident long ago.
The dog dug the same hole every day, got filled every day.
After enough of that, I took a window out, set a slingshot and
a small rock nearby...eventually the opportunity came where
only a furry butt and flying dirt presented itself.

This was in the 70's, there were no e-collars.

One shot, one yelp, one omnipresent loud "NO DIG!" He never dug again.

Wouldn't recommend it, will probably take flak for it, but it worked.
Reaching out remotely seemed to be very effective.

Still miss that dog, who died in '85 at 12.5 yrs.

TOO funny <:-)

Back in the early '70s (yes, before e-collars!) I perfected my intact male Basenji's offlead obedience with the help of a heavy-duty hunting sling-shot -- it worked just exactly the same as your experiment !!!

Even though that make-shift OLD method saved my dog's life, in addition to giving him freedom to romp around off the leash with me, no "tree hugging" dog-lovers will EVER accept that it wasn't the least bit cruel <:-O

i thought about using my paintball gun until i'm not too poor to afford an e-collar, but i'm terrified someone will drive by and see me doing it and call the cops. there are a lot of emaciated dogs around here that live outside all winter long, so i don't think anyone around here is the "call animal control" kind, but i'm even nervous giving my dog a level 9 or 10 leash correction out in public!

i would think the paintball gun to be safer than the slingshot though... softer projectile, and carefully measured velocity.

Yep, but they didn't have paintball guns way back in the early '70s either, LOL

Candi: I hear you. I've seriously been considering e-collar training, and was even looking specifically at the collar you are recommending. How's the range on that collar, and has it remained waterproof? I was also looking at the Tri-Tronics Flyaway, a significantly more expensive and capable collar. I really like that idea. Right now she is free to drag a 15' tracking lead around the yard (5 acres), but it can be a bit dangerous for her even on a harness when she gets to flying around the yard in "crazy dog" mode. I have no doubt she'll get collar-wise no matter how hard I try, she's smart as a whip and few dogs are really that dumb, but even so I bet it will give us both more freedom and more success and thus more happiness than the long lead.

I also hear you about the length of training. The OB classes are 1 hour. She gets horribly bored after 20 minutes. We just started Canine Good Citizen, which really is an exercise in canine patience. Smart girl that she is, she hates sit stay for more than a few minutes and almost always goes into down stay on her own (she won't break the stay most of the time). She'll hang her head if you make her remain in sit stay too long. I think the instructor expects sit stay for too long, myself. I don't think she's going to pass the test first time around at this age but it will be a great base and she LOVES to see all the dogs, especially her "best friend", a Rotty girl that's been in both her kindergarten and basic class--great continued socialization.

Sarah: to stop her from digging I used the theory that a few big corrections are better than a million small ones. During the first few months of her life with me she was (and sometimes still is) under constant surveillance. Obviously I'm not a strict crate/tether kind of guy, but I *never* lost track of what she was doing. Free to drag her long lead around the yard I would catch her in the act, calmly come up to her and give her a big correction, scruff in both hands, front feet off the ground, and calmly tell her "no dig no dig no dig". Then make up with her, of course, like after all big corrections. Again, smart like most dogs, we went through a series of these corrections because she would play every angle. You could see the wheels of her mind turning: "Gee, a hole here is not allowed, but I bet a hole over there is OK." No, sorry, try again :-) After a few days just an "ah ah" or a "no" would get her to stop before she started. After a few more days she figured it all out. I also never let her see me repair a hole. This method also worked for all the other "big mistakes", like the cat food. Constant supervision but with opportunities to learn. I don't set her up i.e. test her but go with the flow. This has payed off big time as other than OB she knows exactly what is expected of her and the crate is no longer necessary. Similarly with chewing, but for that I helped her avoid making mistakes in the first place by spraying a lot of stuff with apple bitter and providing her with things she is allowed to chew (a technique that I actually carried over from my cat experience). After 7 months we've got very little puppy damage in the house, just a few teeth marks on various woodwork. Every once in a while she still needs a little reminder on something, but she's only 7 months and an Akita so I expect periodic retesting :-)

Today I was a little harder on her with a negative if she was slow or not paying attention to the simple things, but always followed up with having her repeat the behavior for a positive food reward and lots of praise and petting so she wouldn't get shy. Not really planned training per se but just treating her a bit differently throughout the day. This sharpened her up quite a bit right away. I think I've just been too easy on her with the negatives. I'm going continue this pattern and see how we make out. Comments on this pattern are appreciated.

Thanks to all,

Scott

Thanks, Scott. I need to call him on his destructive behavior and he needs to spend less time outside alone.

My pup was always on a lead, with me, when he was tiny but lately we've been letting him hang out in the backyard alone while we're home. We know where he is and he always makes sure he can see us. At first we thought/hoped this might be a phase but we've now come to the conclusion that we won't have a yard left if we don't step in right now. Thankfully we don't have any of these problems indoors.

He actually ate a cactus!

 Quote: Sarah_Morris

He actually ate a cactus!

Spiky poo I hope the needles weren't too long & sharp, ow!