Rather then make this one long thread, I’ll post the other situation in another thread.

Up until Thursday, I would of said the highest level of distraction for my 18 month old rott is when relatives come over to my house. I can’t get it through their little pea brains to stop bending over and petting him while he is jumping all around them. If they call first I can put Buddy’s prong and lead on and I don’t have any problem with him minding me. If they just show up and I happen to have Buddy’s e-collar on, it always takes my nicking him once before he will leave them and come to me. I have the stem level at 41, at this level one nick will produce the results I want.

My question on this situation is that this is a on going problem being played out over the past year and I feel by now the dog should be responding to the command to come without my having to correct. Makes me think that the correction is not hard enough even if he does obey, it’s not stopping him from doing the same thing the next time they show up? Can anyone advise me on how to solve this issue?

Thank you,
Peggy

The short answer is yes i think you are right. Your dog figures i can take the small nick if he gets to stay where he is for a bit longer. I dont want to say crank it up but it seems it does need to be increased. But first is it fitted right?

I am looking forward to see what other people have to say to this.

I'd say this is also obedience but...you have to put your foot down with others allowing his behavior in your home. Start with keeping him on leash with you at all times when you're home. Use treats or a kong or whatever so it's more positive but he has to see you as leader and it sounds like he doesn't. As for the collar, if he's distracted he will definately need a higher stim level. Doesn't have to go through the roof, just enough to break the distraction. A moderately higher distraction such as people walking by may need a moderately higher level where-as dirt-bike boy may need a higher stim level than moderate. You could also try a constant stim at the same level if the nick doesn't change the behavior. I look at it as...would you take a quick spanking over being grounded for awhile?

I'd also ask the kid not to pump up your dog as you're trying to train him. Maybe show him what you're doing and he may see this as something cool (the buy in) and be more willing to leave your dog alone.

Like you said them petting him while he is jumping is not helping your situation. Try setting him up in different situations several times throughout the day in different areas of the house. Have different people come into the house. Place the dog in a sit/stay or place command when people come in. If he breaks his command, correct him verbally and with either the leash correction or nick. If he stays in his command, he may be petted, thats his reward with a verbal "Good Boy". He will soon learn that he only gets attention if he is sitting. Your dog should stop jumping within a few days if you keep setting him up and correcting him. Remember, repetion, repetition,repetition.I also like the knee correction in the chest pushing him off balance while saying "no".

Hey there,

I do not have any e-collar experience so take what I say with a grain of salt.

I have found that sometimes dogs can be lousy gerneralizers, and ob issues can be very situation specific. Could it be that what you have in fact trained when you have house guests and use the e-collar is not what you think you have trained?

Could it be that the stim from the collar has become the dog's cue to come (in this instance), rather than the "come command" being the cue to come?

Now whether this means you need to turn up the level on the collar so it acts as a correction, rather than a cue.... and also how to best 'retrain' the dog to react on the "come" command, I will leave it to the e-collar specialists

Sounds like he is actually quite 'well trained' to come with the stim, just that that is not what you want

Just a thought....I may very well be way off. Interested to hear what others who work with a collar think.

Cheers,

Thanks for the replys, you have given me things for me to consider.

Let me add a bit more about his training, following Ed's puppy & OB DVDs. I have tried to be very careful to only give Buddy a command when I am in a position to follow up. I give him the command, if he doesn't respond I say "no" and then correct if he doesn't respond within 2 seconds. For the exception of these two situations, Buddy will come, sit, stay, down, drop-it or leave-it with my only having to give him the verbal command. It is very rare for me to have to correct him regardless of where we are. Just took him with us to visit relatives in Indiana for a week. Had him in different homes around lots of different people and dogs and during all that I only had to correct him two times.

When we have other people over, Buddy is fine off leash, he doesn't go all goofy on me, and will mind without my having to correct him. On walks he walks right by me and ingnores all people and dogs.

Thanks

Are you going to do Schutzund or PP with this dog? If you are, the following does not apply.

With my dog, he's a family companion and we do Obedience. There's no reason for him to ever jump on people. So I set him up. During training I had one of my trainers come up and excite him, when he jumped on her I said "OFF" and immediately gave a strong downward correction with the prong. I have only had to do this once, he no longer jumps on people. This was, of course, after teaching him the meaning of the word "off" with treat rewards. He gets excited, he wags his whole body, he wants to jump, but he doesn't.

Of course, if you're doing Schutz or PP this is the last thing you want to do, and you should continue to work on using other commands to redirect the dog.

David, no he just a pet. He has mild hip dysplasia and no way has the temperment to do Schutzund or PP. He does know the "off" command, and will get off when told, but guess my corrections haven't been hard enough to stop him completly from jumping up.

Thanks again for all the replys.