At what point is it obvious that the dog knows the command? And at what point do you do more corrections for disobedience than the redoing of an exercise?
I have taken Zuki to several dog classes over the last few weeks to work with distraction. She has done a marvelous job but I can't say that success would be so good if I wasn't using hot dogs. I used about 6 hot dogs for 1 hour. I don't know if I would be expecting to much if I used less...They were of course cut into little rounds.
In the therapy dog class they wouldn't let me use treats and she wasn't near as good about leaving the other dogs alone. She will still do most of the commands just not with half the vigor.

Keiko is still simple on this because he is still learning what the commands are but Zuki knows them perfect if I am holding a toy or treat. I have taken some videos at home and hope to get my sister to take one tomorrow at the class so maybe that could help with this question...

I as a rule never apply corrections for obedience, only for pack structure misbehaviour. Such as growling at other dogs , lunging etc.

If your dog is needs to improve on obedience commands, ma be he does not understand it fully or has not learnt to focus on you. I would look into that first.

Try to teach your dog to look at you while you command him.


If he is not interested, then make him very hungry and do training. It may seem like he is doing it for the hot dogs first, but that will change. Soon he will learn that he has to do it. Or rather he will want to do it.

Dont give corrections for Obedience mistakes unless he gets up to chase an other dog or jumps up on a passing stranger totally ignoring you some thing unacceptable like that.

Ram is right, focus needs a little more work. One thing I do in proofing is start phasing out treats. If you use treats all the time, then he's not going to listen as well when you dont have any. Like you found out.

Now if instead you start giving him a random reward, then he will never know, and his attention and focus will still be there. I start with every other time he obeys, then maybe once out of every 3, and so on. I don't know if you do this, but don't give him rewards from the same hand all the time either or he's going to focus on your hands. I remember in the Basic obedience DVD, ED Frawley was feeding rewards from his mouth by dropping them on the ground. lol

I would never give a dog a correction for a command I wasn't 110% sure I know that he knows. If your not sure he knows it , then don't correct. If you know that he knows it and hes just being a butt about it, then I'd give him an ouch. To quote Ed Frawley "One good correction is worth a thousand nagging corrections."

I do give corrections for being disobedient if I know that the dog is being a butt, and just not wanting to listen. Now the level and type of correction depends on the dog.

"She has done a marvelous job but I can't say that success would be so good if I wasn't using hot dogs".


That tells me that she probably doesn't really know what you expect from her because your still luring/bribing with the food.
Just a guess without seeing it.

yes... I REALLY need to get the video on here... Life is so crazy right now.
She is really good at focusing when I have treats BUT she will do the things I ask even if I don't have any. The difference is that she is slower and looks dull without treats.

Example: The other night I got mad and stomped off for a walk. On my way I untied her and took her with me. This was at 11 or so at night. I didn't put any training collars on and took no leash. She ran ahead of me for most of the walk (3 miles, and yes it took me that long to "cool off") However when we would pass a house I told her to heel, not over and over in a mad voice. I said it in almost a whisper . I was worried about there being dogs at the houses and arousing them so I didn't want her making noise in the bushes.
She came right to my side every time and stayed, walking, till I told her my release mark "free". When a car comes and she is walking ahead of me on the side of the road I have told her to down and she will within 3 sec of the command. I these cases I have never used treats (real life).
In the dog class I could use less treats and she would still do it but she would look and act dull and take longer doing them. I am not sure how else to explain it...

Trained means believes that the treat/reward can come at any time. The fact that she slows down when you don't have food tells me you haven't convinced her that reward is always there even if she doesn't see it.
Random reward!
It could also be that, without rewards in your hand/pocket you are anticipating slower response and YOUR slowing down in order for her to catch up. Move out and let HER heel to your pace. Sounds like she did it fine when you went for your cool down walk.
Marker training is your friend!!

Yeah I would just start phasing out the treats. He sounds like he's at the point now where he doesn't really need them , he just wants them and thats his motivation to do things quickly.

If he never knows when he's going to get one, then he should be more apt to perform just as quickly without a reward in hopes that the next time he will get one. Just do it gradually over time and you'll come to the point where hes not even noticing if he doesn't get but maybe one reward for the whole session.

Don't be afraid to use your voice too, high praises once in a while goes a long way. One word of advise - going for a walk with your best friend to cool off is fine. Don't ever do an OB session angry though, it will very effectively destroy trust very quickly.

I found some of these useful, and they're free!~

http://leerburg.com/flix/category.php?categoryid=57

 Quote: Ben McDonald

Yeah I would just start phasing out the treats. He sounds like he's at the point now where he doesn't really need them , he just wants them and thats his motivation to do things quickly.

ummmm...Zuki is a She
Today was not so great even with treats. It was a new place and she really hates new flooring. If I could do things over I would take her on every different kind of floor possible (when she was a puppy)...
I am feeling deflated. I took videos today so hopefully by tomorrow or next day I can get them on here. I don't know if I caught any of her on the video yet cause the camera was sitting on a desk. Anyway I have three different times I shot and maybe I can get a few more. Just when I am feeling good about how the training is going I feel like I am starting from zero.

Bah Sorry! uuhhhh ... I meant she yeah thats it.

Don't be discouraged! Everyone has those days where it just seems like it's falling apart. The thing to do is bounce back and find that spark again. You can do it!

Another something to keep in the back of your head too, is every dog learns differently (as I'm sure you know). How you get Keiko to do something and motivate him isn't going to be how Zuki looks at things, and vice versa. It's just like human fur-babies except they can't talk back. (though some would beg to differ!)

Do you do your training independently or together with both dogs at once?

If you dont mind me asking, which dog do you find easier to train?

We ran out of treats here for a few days and it was an interesting experiment on what Jethro is capable of sustaining without treats. It got pretty difficult by day 3! Then, I cooked up some hamburger patties and cut them into itsy bitsy pieces. We went out on a late night training walk with the clicker and these treats and I have never seen Jethro so focused or attentive. Then today, I didn't use treats, but I noticed Jethro was super on his game with me and we had a good day with his responsiveness. Tonight I am loading up the treat pouch again, putting him on a long line and heading out for an after dark training walk. He doesn't get his dinner until after the last walk, so he will be hungry.

The thing is, when I was routinely wearing the treat pouch, he would get to the point of grabbing the treat and turning back to whatever it was he was distracted by. Last night he was giving me his full attention and really working with me. He was willing to do more training than I had ever seen before.

What I learned is that he is not ready to live without treats entirely, and if I take him off too soon we just have a lot of problems. On the other hand, he is ready to work a lot harder than I thought, given the right timing and conditions.

We'll see how he is tonight. Honestly, last night, he was like those dogs in the videos. I never thought he would ever be so prompt and responsive.