Problem: can't seem to perfect my dog's "sit/down, stay" obedience when there are distractions, especially with other dogs on the scene.

Age: 21 months

Typical Scenario #1: I'm walking my dog and a passerby (neighbor) has new puppy so we stop and talk. Pup is a little nervous about Gunnar so I tell my dog to stay in a down position. He does but will break the down eventually (after about 1 full minute). He breaks it especially if the pups eggs him on to play.

Typical Scenario #2: Walking in park where many others have dogs both on leash and off. When I tell my dog to sit and wait while someone and their dog passes, he'll do so but just when I'm ready to release him, he breaks the sit.

Wherever I take him, people stop me and say, "What a well behaved dog. Did you train him?" He is a very well behaved dog if I compare him to the general public's average pet.

What I want is more and I want complete reliability and can't seem to figure out how to get it. Is he too young to expect perfect obedience under distractions like other dogs?

In my home and my backyard we work on obedience every day. I can use treats or a ball and get the same great results. Now I use treats very sparingly. With the ball, if he listens to the command perfectly, he get's to run after the ball. He loves the game. If he doesn't listen, I go inside and the game's over. Every other command in our arsenal can be perfected during this game except the sit/down stay w/distractions. And it this command that seems to be his undoing.

He's a showline, not a working line, probably not capable of Schutzhund, does a great competition heeling, relaxed heel (off leash), he heels walking backwards, knows complicated commands such as "Go get Jesse" (he knows my sons' names and knows to run upstairs and paw at whichever one I've told him to and knows to then come running back to me). He knows every command in English, German and the hand signal for each. He's smart as a whip.

He's rather impressive to most people, including me. But I'm baffled as to why I can get him to do so many crazy, difficult commands and yet not be able to get him to stay where there is another dog ??? Please help...it's making me crazy !

I'm still relatively new to advanced training, and not to mention the obvious or anything... but since your dog already knows the commands and breaks them under distraction, have you already tried giving a quick prong correction to reenforce the command? (And giving them at a level that will make your dog mind?)

My pup is only 9 months so I don't expect him to hold a sit or down stay for more than 30 seconds or so under heavy distraction (i.e dogs bouncing around him). I noticed that he would start anticipating the release, like your dog, but a quick pop with the prong taught him to stay put.

Of course the release is always followed by huge praise and I'm careful to go slow with adding distractions. The "stay" around distractions is now one of his favourite exercises because he knows that an exciting reward is coming after the release. In fact he won't even look at the distractions anymore, he'll stare at me intently waiting for his reward

Anyway good luck, doesn't sound like you have too much of a problem to me! And remember, I'm still a newbie, so take my advice for what it's worth, hehe.

I agree with the prevous poster. It sounds like the perfect time to introduce the prong, as well as distractions in a controlled way. Other dogs off leash is a huge distraction. Start with bouncing balls, then graduate to your children walking by, then to one dog far away and gradually bring the dog in closer and closer. There is a nice page on this site about how to fit a prong, maybe someone can post the link.
Good luck!

BTW, how did you train him to go find people on command? Sounds like a great trick, I'd love to try that out!

I doubt your dog is too young to be corrected for not minding - he's almost 2 years old so definitely not a baby anymore.

I found that a quick and strong correction (as in, not nagging, but not too harsh either) in obedience followed by a LOT of praise and excitement when the exercise is done right does not lower the dog's drive. In fact, it seems to make my pup even more driven and precise in his work.

Ed's DVD's are so great - I can't believe how much I've learned from them and how amazingly well my pup is responding to the techniques. The so called trainers and obedience classes around here are clueless; they use treats and corrections, but none of them have dogs that are working in high drive with the speed and precision of execution that the dogs on the dvd have.

Judy, I'm assuming you do have Ed's Basic Obedience http://www.leerburg.com/302.htm and e-collar training http://www.leerburg.com/318.htm videos already, right ???

He covers upping the ante on distractions/corrections pretty extensively in both, IIRC <:-)

Ooh, I just thought of something to add.
One problem that people around here often have with their dogs holding the "stay" is the following scenario:
- dog is put into sit/down stay (leash on)
- handler drops leash and moves away from dog
- dog starts to break the stay after a while
- handler says "no" and moves in to grab the leash to correct the dog
- dog drops back into position at "no", before leash correction can be given
- handler doesn't go through with the leash correction because the dog got back into position before it could be reached

The problem with that is that the dog learns that as long as it gets back into the stay position BEFORE the handler can get back to correct them, they can break the stay and avoid the correction. This is what happened with my older female when I trained her 10 years ago in a local obedience class.

If you read what Ed writes on the site and watch his DVDs, you'll see that you ALWAYS correct the dog for breaking a stay, even if the dog gets back into position before you can reach him.

I tried this new technique on my 10-year-old female (who has been breaking "stays" her whole life) and it has fixed the problem! Such a simple thing to do and so remarkably effective.
I see this problem a lot in dogs wherever I go - the owners just need to be more consistent in giving an effective correction every single time the dog messes up.

As someone else pointed out, it sounds like maybe you went from no distractions to huge distractions with nothing in between.

What did you do to start distraction-proofing? (Example: another person in the yard; two people talking in the yard; a dog being walked by, far away but visible...... gradual upping of distraction, starting very low and not continuing until that level is firm.)

Editing to add that it sounds like you're doing great. I would just back up on the commands-under-distraction until the proofing is solid. JMO!

 Quote: yuko blum

BTW, how did you train him to go find people on command? Sounds like a great trick, I'd love to try that out!

Know the question was for Judy, but would like to share how I taught my pup to "find" whatever. Started him at about 3 months old. I would say "where's Christopher (my son), find Christopher", then would take him to my son and say "good find Christopher, good find!!!" a couple of times. After a couple times of this he knew the word "find Christopher" and "where's Christopher". At the same time I had introduced him to the word "treat", "ball", "bone", etc. So he knew names of various objects. So I would preface the finding of other objects with "where's the (ball), find the ball" and would lead him to where he could see the ball and repeat "find the ball". I wouldn't take him to the ball, just let him see it. He took it from there. Now I can either say "where's the (object), or just "find the (object). And he keeps looking until he does, out of sight or not.

That's so neat, thanks Sandy!

What would you do if your pup always sticks close to you and refuses to leave your sight? lol
Mine will do anything I ask if he can see me, but the second I disappear behind a bush or change rooms, it's over

Judy, this has been covered at length before...more than once..Try to use the search to find them. I know it has because I know that I answered it more than once with great detail on how to proof a dog by adding distractions, time, & distance. And to answer your question about age & working lines or not...training is not breed specific or age specific for that matter at least not after 1 1/2 year old or so. Obviously since you can put a BH on a dog after 15months & a SchH I after 18 months old. Each of which requires longs downs under distractions. My female was doing long downs with HEAVY distractions (kids, dogs on & off leash, squirles, chipmonks, cats etc) by 1 1/2 yrs old with very little corrections & she is an almost extreme drive dog. My dogs don't get any corrections until about a year old...all motovational training. (She is a Mal in GSD fur) So it has nothing to do with the drive of the dog...just alot of training.